Victims of Circumstance
by Aesla
Summary: A series of Elsanna interactions exploring their dependence on one another as they attempt to bring Arrendale to a stable financial future after the freeze. What is it about the sisters that draws them to each other like metals to a magnet? After all they went through together, apart, and together once more, how could they feel any differently?
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Frozen, the characters, the plot, or any other thing associated with said work that may or may not be owned by an individual. Disney owns it. The End. This is an Elsanna story. Do with that information what you will, but no one is forcing you to read this.  
**_

* * *

Anna pushed food around with her fork, lutefisk leaving a frown of sauce on the face of her plate. She exhaled heavily, and couldn't even find amusement in Olaf's ice-cube juggling. Even though it _was _amusing; he was juggling with his mouth by projectile spitting the frozen dots into the air at strategic intervals. Sven and her best friend Kristoff had declined the dinner invitation, and Elsa…

It was no matter. Olaf was company, but Anna had hoped, after their adventure, their discovery, their acknowledgement, that she and Elsa might reclaim all that they had lost in their childhood. It had been mere days since their return from the North mountain, but she had forgotten the most important part; the catalyst that started the whole thing.

The ball.

The coronation.

The Queen.

Elsa was now Queen of Arrendale, and could no longer be counted upon for such trifles as entertaining her sister. Not that she entertained her during their youth, what with the imposed separation. But still, it didn't help with the… what was it? Disappointment? Unhappiness? Absolute _longing_ she had to be with her sister? It was almost unnatural, how her bones ground in their sockets, how her organs just seemed to stall, all for wont of Elsa's company. Anna cherished their meals so, even when it was lutefisk, which is why tonight's lonely dinner struck her particularly hard.

"What's wrong?" Olaf asked.

"Nothing, Olaf. I wish I could juggle like you," she said.

"I couldn't do it without— Elsa!"

Anna looked up toward the end of the room, the Queen entering demurely with her dark cloak, tight hair bun, and face of placid features.

"Thank goodness you're here!" Olaf waddled over to his creator like a penguin on grass. "Anna's been a real stick in the mud all through dinner."

"Really?" Elsa asked, sedate. "That does not seem like our Anna at all."

"I know! It's like she's sad."

Anna noted her sister's concerned expression; the slight shift at the corner of her mouth. Anna had cataloged every movement at the corner of Elsa's mouth, more than she would like to admit, but tonight's was the same expression the young woman had worn throughout the day: a mix of exhaustion and discontent.

Elsa, losing her composure momentarily, slumped into the seat at the head of the long table.

"Ugh, lutefisk again?"

"You're the queen, you can change the menu," Anna answered. "Not that you would. Or you'd have to. Just when you say 'ugh', it makes it seem as though you're not partial to lutefisk, which would mean you'd not fancy it, so you should have something else if you don't want it. Not that _I _don't want it, if you do, but you don't, because I… well, of course I don't want it, I would much rather have—"

"There's no way you're having chocolate for dinner," Elsa said, raising a hand to her forehead.

Anna could feel the tension in her sister's body. It radiated from her person to the table, an oblivious Olaf shooting icicles onto the surface like crossbow arrows.

"Olaf," Anna said.

The dimwitted snowman stared back at her, face blank as the white of his body.

"The queen— Elsa is very tired. I think we're going to cut dinner short tonight."

"Fine by me," Olaf said, resuming his spitting.

"Olaf."

"Yes?"

"That means you might want to go," Anna said.

"Okay."

"As in, _now_."

"What?"

"Olaf," Anna looked from her sister to the snowman. "We're going to bed. We will see you tomorrow. Please leave the castle now."

"Ohhhhh!" Olaf said, sloshing his soggy lower half from the chair at the formal dining table. "Why didn't you just say so?" He made his way over to the window and turned back toward Anna and Elsa with a salute of his stick arm. "Night ladies… Look out below!" He jumped unceremoniously from the second story window.

Anna giggled into her hand as she approached the window to close it.

"Hey there, fellows, anybody wanna help me grab my butt?" she heard Olaf say.

Anna shut the window and turned back to the table, lit by candles and a fireplace on the occupied end. Elsa looked stately, rigid, composed, ever the regal queen. She also, Anna noted with amusement, looked asleep. Which she was.

Anna took the opportunity to lean closely to her sister. She sniffed. Ummm… Vanilla and fatigue. If one could smell tiredness.

"Elsa…" Anna tried, stooping over the sleeping monarch.

She decided to chance it. Anna placed an open palm on her sister's cheek, gently rubbed the soft marble and whispered the Queen's name until she woke. She wouldn't have traded her sister's smile for all the reindeer herds in the North.

"C'mon, you," Anna said. "You need to get to bed."

"No, I can't. If this makes any sense at all, I'm much to tired to sleep."

"So what were you doing just now?" Anna teased. "And honestly, that makes no sense at all. And I should know. I'm the Queen of not making sense."

"Want to trade titles?"

"Elsa?"

"It's nothing Anna, I just… never mind."

Elsa stood, cast a dark look at her untouched plate, and moved toward the door.

"Wait!" Anna said, a slice of desperation in her voice. "I… I've missed you."

Elsa stopped, her chin resting on her own shoulder as she turned back to Anna. "I have missed you more than you can fathom, Anna. But for now, I need to clear my head."

"Perhaps I can help?" Anna said, stumbling after her sister. "I've not seen you in _days_ Elsa. Is it really so bad?"

"Much worse."

"Elsa—"

"I'm going to bathe."

"I'll come with you."

Elsa stopped her with a look. It was like Marshmallow had taken over Elsa's expression, his strength and aggression manifest in nothing but blue iris and arched brow.

"No, I meant… that is… like, when we were little," Anna rambled. "In that big tub, with all the bubbles, and we would play with the miniature ships, and then you _always _got the ducky, even though I begged you to let me be the ducky, and all I had was the stupid battle ship—"

"I recall you taking possession of the canons," Elsa said with a slight smile.

"Canons? Boo. You had a flying animal."

"Who could do little more than quack at ships. Who won the battle every time?"

"I did. But that doesn't mean— oh." Anna looked at the floor. "You let me win?"

"Never," Elsa said, a hand over her heart and eyes dramatically wide. "Let those toy canons incapacitate my all-powerful waterfowl? How could I?"

Anna laughed, unable to know how her sister could calm her whenever _she_ was the one that needed the calming.

"Remember how mom would brush out our hair?" she asked.

"I remember you would never sit still," Elsa answered. "Bath time lasted _ages_ with you in there."

"I could do it for you." Anna said.

Elsa surveyed her sister, the scrutinizing eyes of a diplomat, as if she were a trade agreement, or the hand of a prince from a neighboring country, an import or an export inventory, the final bill for the castle's daily functions.

"Elsa," Anna said. "It's just me. All I'm going to do is brush your hair, not ask you for an extension on a royalty fee."

Elsa put a hand to her head, and the Queen's mask shattered. Nothing was left but Elsa, and it bolstered and broke Anna's heart. She looked so sad.

"I would like that, Anna."

"Then let's go," Anna said. "I'm sure I can find something to ramble on about to preoccupy your mind from the woes of the kingdom."

Anna caught it, though her sister tried to hide it. The beginnings of a smile, creeping over Elsa's mouth like frost on a windowpane.

* * *

"So, what'll it be?" Anna said. The water was steaming up from the massive clawfoot tub like drafts from a geyser. The women's eyes were half-covered by their own tired lids, and the fragrances of exotic soaps and oils only made the bath more inviting. They could very well sink into the tub and never come out again.

"Uhm, cardamine seed and Roman chamomile," Elsa answered, sprinkling some concentrated perfume on the liquid surface. The oils pooled on the top of the water in fluorescent blues and purples, swirling like the snows of Elsa's powers.

"Beautiful…"

"What?" Elsa asked.

"The colors," Anna pointed. "They look like you… your snow!"

Elsa grinned at the colors and shucked her robe. And Anna couldn't help but stare.

"What?" the Queen asked.

"Elsa?!"

"What?" she repeated, hands gripping the lip of the tub, back curving like a snow leopard's, leg lifting over the edge like a hiker's, breasts, swinging…

Elsa knelt in the tub with a wide expression, confused, bubbles drifting up to her navel.

Anna pointedly took notice of the carved crown molding on the ceiling of the bathroom.

"Anna?"

"Are you underwater yet?!"

"What? I'm in the… oh, am I making you uncomfortable?" Elsa asked, splashing in the water like a kingfisher.

_Yes, extremely. Then again…_

Anna gulped. "Well, yeah…"

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize—that is, I never really… I'm in the tub now, Anna."

Anna turned around to see pale shoulders and an enticing clavicle.

_Enticing? What the_—

"I never really covered up when I was younger," Elsa said. "I mean, there was never anyone to cover up _for_, so my modesty just sort of—" the Queen whooshed a hand and a biting breeze hit Anna's face. The ruddy-haired girl was thankful for the cool air.

"Isolation is freeing in that regard. When I'm in private, I forget myself," the Queen explained.

"What do you call me? You're not in private now."

"I might as well be. With you I… it's just… you're—"

"We're sisters," Anna offered, perching herself on the tub's end. She fingered the loosed strands of her sister's platinum hair, lumpy braid spilling over the side and onto the younger girl's lap. Flashes of what that hair would look like, feel like, against her own skin, against her chest—

"Anna?"

"Hmm?"

"Could you use the round brush? It doesn't tug so."

"Of course."

Anna unlooped the tie from her sister's hair, and began to brush, waves of ivory and snowflakes spilling over Anna's robe-covered thighs.

"I take it the economic advisory board is unhappy with your request," Anna mumbled, trying not to disrupt her sister's quiet moment.

"Yes…" Elsa drawled. "They think cutting taxes undermines the entire system."

"But they listened to your counter offer?"

"They don't know if the profit margin will match previous grosses from a full tax year."

"The numbers don't add up?" Anna asked.

"God, don't ask me. I'm so tired of numbers," Elsa said, placing her hands on her eyes and submerging herself.

Anna tugged her hair playfully until she resurfaced. "I don't think it's unreasonable to alleviate some of the tax…"

"Anna—"

"But _no_ taxes at all? I know you feel guilty Elsa, but—"

"Anna, enough. I've decided."

"You've not decided. You were pressured."

"By whom?"

"Yourself. Your guilt."

"Anna, no. It's not—"

"Yes it is," Anna insisted. "You've already said so, on numerous occasions. The freeze you caused stalled so many industries: agriculture, forestry, fishing, construction—"

"You should be an inspirational speaker, you're doing wonders for my self-esteem," Elsa said, hard.

"But they cannot blame you. You didn't know what you were doing."

"Anna, of course they blame me. They blame the cause. _I'm _the cause. I just so happen to also be the Queen. The least I can do is make amends."

"By selling yourself?"

Elsa tilted her head back, water and bubbles bobbing lower, lower, cleavage exposed, oily film clinging to her skin.

"You know what I mean," Anna squeaked. "No matter how many ice shipments you make intact to the lower continent, it won't remedy public opinion. People will still remember it."

"But maybe more money in their pockets will aid in the forgetting."

"How could anyone forget you?" Anna asked, and placed a soft kiss to the melding of Elsa's forehead and scalp.

"I know you meant that as a compliment, but I wish this whole thing would just blow over."

"Pun intended?" Anna smirked.

"What? _I wish this whole thing would just blow_— oh. Got it." Elsa smiled up at her sister, then sat up in the tub, swooshing her long swath of hair into the bubbly water below. It held the most unearthly, iridescent shimmer Anna had ever seen, plunging like a waterfall from the crown of her sister's head and fanning out in the water like playing cards at a table.

"When did you get so smart, little sister?" Elsa asked quietly, sudsy knees tucked up to her chin.

Anna couldn't have stopped herself if she had wanted to. She began humming softly, and crept down from the lip of the tub, ankles resting on patterned tile and facing her sister's weary profile. Her fingers followed the curtain of platinum, never pausing in their trace. Anna brushed neck and shoulder and temple and arm, all covered by the heavy, saturated hair. Elsa stared straight ahead, the tendon in her jaw tightening with every stroke from the younger girl. Tinkles of water fell from Anna's fingers, slight sloshing waves accompanying her melody in the echoing wash room.

Anna finally noticed her sister, miniscule shakes and a tear at her eye.

"Elsa? Are you cold?" she asked, dipping a finger into the water. Not scalding, but certainly more than warm.

"No."

"You're shaking, or shivering, or quaking. Whatever you wish to call it."

"Don't stop, Anna."

"Alright." Anna continued her trace and her song, but was halted when her hand dipped under the water.

Elsa had taken her hand and curled their fingers together, rolling the pad of her thumb over Anna's knuckle.

Anna studied their hands, water droplets racing the length of her forearm and disappearing under the loose silk sleeve at her elbow. Elsa turned, and cradled the younger woman's forearm between her hands, turning it, stroking it, grasping Anna's slight wrist in the webbing between her pointer finger and thumb.

"Elsa—"

"I haven't touched skin in over a decade, Anna. Please."

There was no hesitancy on her part. She pulled her sleeves up, and thrust her other arm over the lip of the tub.

"Double the fun," Anna joked.

"You were always too accommodating," Elsa said, running her hands up her sister's arms.

"Only for you. I was always, _will_ always be… only for you."

"Anna, you shouldn't say such things."

"What things? What did I say?"

"Your words— maybe it wasn't just them. But, but the way you _look_ at me, Anna, when you say these things. It is…"

"What?"

Elsa faced her sister, curled up demurely in the clawfoot tub. But Anna, emboldened, shifted all of her weight to her knees, folded her arms on the lip of the bath, and invaded the sanctity of Elsa's personal bubble. Anna felt warm, wet air cling to her exposed skin, the V of her robe slick and widening with every movement. Some animal tore at her gut when she noticed Elsa follow the trail of perspiration that began at the hollow of her own throat and ended somewhere in the depths of the egg-shell silk covering she wore.

"What is it Elsa?" Anna continued, taking her sister's wet hand and placing it on her own face. She hummed into her touch, and drug the hand down so that the Queen's slim fingers were hurdling over her collarbone, lingering near her throat, rising and falling like the water in the tub.

Anna looked up to her sister, who was breathing staccato, her eyes tightly shut and her head down. It was odd, the one with the power completely powerless, being baited, almost wounded into submission. Anna couldn't reconcile her own actions; it seemed unorthodox, but she knew with a certainty that she _had_ to feel Elsa. That Elsa _must_ feel her in return. Anna removed Elsa's hand from her neckline and brought each individual finger to her lips.

"When I look at you, Elsa, and say these things… you think it's—"

A kiss on her sister's pinky.

"Unbecoming?"

A touch of lips to the Queen's ring finger.

"Improper?"

She grazed her sister's middle finger with her teeth.

"Unnatural?"

Her lips met the index finger, and when the digit hit the corner of her mouth, ice frosted her dimple.

"Wrong, in some way?"

Anna brought her sister's thumb to her lips, guiding it, encouraging it, to trace the outline of the fleshy pinkness. When Anna dropped her own hand, Elsa's thumb remained.

"None of those," Elsa whispered.

"Then what?" Anna asked, leaning forward.

"When you look at me, the way you do, and say things like that, it's…"

"It's…"

"Tempting," Elsa said, and closed the distance between the two.

The animal in Anna's gut morphed into some combusting chemical, her stomach dropping like she was falling, tumbling over the edge of a cliff. It was more intoxicating than the champagne she had sampled at Elsa's return.

Anna was kissing her sister as she had never kissed anyone.

For she knew, now, as her sister cradled her head, ran smooth, deft fingers over the lining of her robe, that she could never love anyone the way she loved Elsa. Their relationship was a volatile equation: take two sisters, add nearly fifteen years separation, divide by misunderstanding, isolation, fear, multiply by _x_, where _x_ equals hurt and unfairness, and then reconcile with the addition of communication, sympathy, and uninhibited love, and you get… whatever this is. Inelegant, unbalanced, unstable. But it was not their doing.

They were both victims of circumstance, so Anna blamed circumstance for her need to slice the seam of her sister's lips with her tongue, to nudge Elsa's nose upward so she could stroke and nip and suck her gloriously cool bottom lip. Circumstance was the reason she had her hands on the Queen's naked shoulder blades, why she pressed ever closer, Elsa's spine warping like a pulled bow frame, leaning, leaning…

Until the notoriously clumsy younger fell straight into the bath with the older.

The water wasn't cool, but it was certainly the slap in the face she needed.

Anna came up, sputtering and snorting at one end, Elsa wide-eyed and smirking at the other.

"You fell," she insisted.

"You pulled me," Anna splashed at her, and Elsa laughed.

"You were the one who kept leaning on top of me," Elsa said.

"If you had a little more upper body strength, we wouldn't have this problem."

"We can't all possess those lean, nimble biceps you cultivate with your tree climbing."

Anna snorted again and looked at her arms. "Yeah righ—oh," Anna stared at herself. The silk robe had been white to begin with, but now, soaking, it left little to the imagination. She crossed her arms inexpertly over her chest.

"Oooooh is right," Elsa said, a lustful, sassy tone rolling off her tongue like a downhill snowball.

Something was gaining momentum, picking up, and couldn't be stopped. Anna knew she had started it, but had no idea where it would lead. Endgame was never her specialty. She often acted without thinking, which is what led Elsa to come behind her and clean up her mess. Maybe her sister would be able to do the same now.

"Elsa?"

"Hmmm?" the elder asked, tracing the surface of the water with a perfectly clipped nail.

"What, uhm, what do we do now?"

"You interrupted my bath, so I need to finish."

"Oh," Anna said, bewildered. "Oh right, well I'll just let you get to it, then."

"Anna."

Anna watched as Elsa rose from the water, compact and lean and poised beyond belief. She extended a hand, and Anna missed on the first try, because she had never seen so much of her sister's _body _before, and it was just _right there_, and she didn't understand why that beast was telling her to devour—

"C'mon," Elsa instructed, pulling her sister up by the hand. Sheets of water fell from the younger into the bath.

Anna whimpered as Elsa undid the tie to her robe, the elder looking up through uncertain lashes as she caught Anna's eye.

"Do you… do you love me?" Elsa asked.

"More than you could ever know," Anna said.

Elsa pushed the robe open, and it fell in the water with a _plop_. The Queen's hands were on her abdomen, tugging her closer, becoming more familiar with the flesh on her sister's body.

"That wasn't a fluke, was it?" she asked, hands still preoccupied with Anna's skin.

The younger could barely speak.

"Nngh… no, Elsa, wow, no, I've wanted that— you— I've missed… whahhhh."

"Anna, you're going to have to learn to finish your sentences."

"Hmmm…" Anna gulped as Elsa brought a towel to her body, slowly wiping water from her arms, shoulders, neck, breasts—

"Elsa!"

"Almost, now add a verb."

The Queen wrapped the towel behind Anna and pulled her so that their bodies were millimeters apart.

Anna tried to tamp down the overwhelming excitement. It was not like her to be speechless.

"Everything's changed right?" she asked.

Elsa nodded.

"But for the better, yes? I mean, this is better, for me, and you seem, well, _perfect_. But I didn't know where this was going. You know me, I tend to barrel in head first without really thinking—"

"Or fingertip first," Elsa wriggled her digits against Anna's rib cage.

"Hmmmm, yeeees," Anna said. "But, like I was… oh _Elsa_… trying to say is, I'm not… quite… sure where to go from here. That is, are you? Do you know what, well, there's this feeling, like an animal in my stomach, and I don't know what it's _doing_, Elsa, and I feel like I'm going to burst if I don't—"

Elsa silenced her sister with her own lips, grinning into the younger girl's mouth. The sweet sound of puckering flesh brought Anna back to the reality of the bathroom when Elsa broke away.

"I can show you, Anna, if you wish."

"Show me what?"

"Not here. The servants will be in to clean shortly."

"Where are we going?"

"First, my chambers."

"First? There's a second?"

"It's a surprise," Elsa said mischievously.

"I loooove surprises."

"I know."

"But," Anna hesitated. "What if—"

"Anna, if you ever feel uncomfortable, you need only tell me. I think it best we take this..." Anna shrunk under the scrutiny of Elsa's eyes. That is, until the Queen lifted her chin with a perfect finger. "We'll take this slowly."

"What are we going to be doing, exactly?"

"I can't very well tell you that, silly," Elsa said, stepping over the tub and tying the towel at the crevice of her chest. "But for starters," Elsa whipped back toward her sister and nuzzled the curve of her neck, and blew cold, sibilant air into her ear. "Now that I know you're… well," Elsa ran a fingertip up her side and Anna gravitated toward the touch like metal to a magnet. "I'm going to touch your entire body until I can't forget the feel of your skin in my palms, or how your lips taste. I want to know if you're still ticklish behind your knee."

Anna coughed, face red as a tomato.

"And after that, the _real _surprise."

Elsa walked close to her mirror and pulled her wet hair back, humming the same tune Anna had started as she draped her hair over her shoulder.

"Are you coming Anna?" Elsa teased. "You look a little… chilled."

It was all Anna could do to remain upright as she yanked another dry robe from the peg and darted after her sister.

* * *

_**I've never written anything like this before. But... how could they not, you know? It was like, a recipe for eternal dependence with those two. Another chapter or two in the works, a little more one-shotty in structure. Would love a review if you cared to provide feedback.**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Woah, guys, the FF trifecta?! So many favs, follows, and reviews! Thanks for all the feedback for this little ditty. I was out of town for the holidays, so I should be posting chapters a little bit more frequently from now on. Looks like we're working with something like a five-ish chapter story structurewise. I don't own Frozen, Disney does. *le sigh*  
**_

* * *

"Elsaaaaaaa, where are we going?"

They turned corners with speed and glee, as if their childhoods had not been stolen. The young women giggled and shhhed like children with a delightful secret.

"I told you, it's a surprise!"

"But don't you think we should talk about—"

"We will, Anna, we will. But we have to hurry. It's almost time."

"I thought you were tired."

Elsa stopped her sister and looked down at their hands, fit like the joints of a custom-made cabinet. Rethinking her actions in the bathroom, the Queen internally conceded she may have moved a bit too quickly. She squeezed her sister's fingers, rough from tree bark and brook pebbles and pastry-snatching. Her own were smooth, underused, only ever a little dry from all the papers and documents she daily handled. Elsa, in her excitement, longed for the opportunity to get her hands dirty.

She looked Anna up and down: boisterous, charming, naïve-but-not-unintelligent, Anna.

_Dirty hands in more ways than one._

Anna had held her, kissed her. She had _touched_ her, clavicle and jawline and braid and ribcage. But Anna had touched her previously, moved her, and, (if she were being completely honest with herself) blindsided her with the gravity of her sacrifice. Locked in stony ice for what could have been days then weeks, months then years, on and on into perpetuity for all the foresight the princess possessed; Anna made the decision to stop Hans' sword _knowing_ she might not ever return to Arrendale, to her friends... to her life.

The weight of it hit Elsa all at once. Like the chandelier of her ice palace, once suspended yet secure, then falling, lurching, shattering with such a force that Elsa had been rendered unconscious. The crossbow arrow struck the chandelier's crystalline anchor just as Elsa had struck Anna's heart.

Or was it the other way around?

_Anna had struck her heart_.

It was not painful. It was not terrifying, nor frightening, but it was not all at once comfortable. It was unsettling, knowing someone would give their life for yours. It was tragic and drastic and magic. But above all things, it was beautiful.

Anna's arms around her waist jolted Elsa out of her own mind, back to the hallway, back to her sister, back to the realization that she _wanted_ her because she surpassed all else.

"There was so little I found beautiful, Anna."

Lowering the drawbridge. Confessions of past sadness. Letting in, not shutting out.

"What?"

"It was so ugly, the separation. There were times when I was alone, but never lonely. Seclusion, and an appreciation for it can be learned, but it is not natural when coupled with confinement. Do you understand what I mean?"

Anna's mouth hung like her limp braids, drying and frizzing from the bath. Her eyebrows knit together like a tea cosy. "No. Can't say that I do."

"Being alone of your own volition is different than a forced removal. At the coronation ball, _I _left. No one told me to leave. _I _did it, because I wanted to; needed to, actually. And in that, there was beauty. Beauty and freedom. I had seen so little of it, experienced such tiny instances of beauty. As a child, you were all over the place, it was murder trying to snatch glimpses of your escapades. But even you weren't enough, all those years—"

"Wait, stop. You're saying, what, exactly? I'm beautiful?" Anna snorted self deprecatingly.

"In all my time spent in that room, in this castle…" Elsa nodded toward her chamber door, threw looks at the shadowed halls that could have been filled with pointy, malignant icicles, and then returned her gaze to her sister. "… you were the most beautiful thing I could lay my eyes on. And hearing you tell me that in the bath, that you wanted... that is, that _we _might, if we were to engage in—"

"Careful Elsa, I'm the rambler. If you start leaving sentences unfinished, what am I bringing to the table?"

Elsa's cheeks felt like embers. "Of course, Anna." The queen took a moment to collect herself, and dropped her voice.

"I'm going to kiss you."

"Please," the younger said.

Elsa tilted Anna's head down, and put her mouth at the freckled mass on Anna's right temple. She ran her fingers over her sister's neck, marveling at the bodily organ that was _skin_.

"You're so beautiful Anna, interior, exterior, publicly, privately. You are everything I wish I was."

"What? Me? No, Elsa, you've got it all wrong. You don't want to be me, I'm all—" Anna screwed up her face and waggled her arms like a fish attempting to climb a tree. "You're- you're the Queen, for heaven's sake! You're better than that, you're Elsa," Anna affirmed. "How could you doubt your beauty?"

"Beauty doesn't destroy."

"Sure it does. Beautiful things destroy all the time, but destruction isn't always bad. Nothing lasts forever. My snowmen, they were beautiful, but even they had to melt. And, when you think about it, melting is just as marvelous, just as beautiful as freezing."

_Joy_. Not cold, not warm, Elsa just felt joy.

"You are so wise," Elsa said, cradling her sister's face. "Just don't tell Olaf what you said," she joked.

"And break his heart? You know me better."

"You are the most beautiful thing I've ever set eyes on, truly," Elsa said, taking her sister's hand and pulling her toward her chambers. "But I'm going to show you what I thought was a close second. On days that hit me hardest, I'd have to find something, anything, to know that I could be strong enough to keep you away. I did it so infrequently— some Christmases, your sixteenth birthday, when mother and father passed—"

"I'll probably hate whatever it is, if it kept you away from me as long as it did."

"I told you," Elsa said. "Second most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But I would have given it up in a heartbeat, to have you back. And keep in mind," Elsa said, tugging Anna towards her open canopy bed, "I've built an ice castle."

Anna looked at the bed hesitantly.

"What is it that we've got to—"

"Nothing here," Elsa said, ducking to her knees on the far side of her room.

"Oh…" Anna said.

Elsa glanced back up at her sister.

_Was that disappointment in her voice? _

_Eager Anna. Just like her to want to dive straight in with no knowledge of logistics._

"Well," Elsa continued, avoiding eye contact to be safe. She set about to turning up the corner of her bedroom rug. "Nothing here, yet. I mean, now. If you wish anything…"

Anna saved her sister from her verbal spiral.

"What is that?" the younger asked.

"My small adventure," Elsa said, and lifted a hatch no bigger than the top to one of the bakery crates, her delicate frame slipping through the boards like water through a leaky ceiling. "Come along, Anna. This has your name written all over it."

Anna need not be told twice. She practically vaulted onto the rickety ladder descending into darkness.

"Elsa? What is this place?"

Elsa found a taper and struck flint to steel, hidden in a loosed brick near the bottom of the ladder.

"I would think you'd know a secret passage when you saw one. I'm not surprised you didn't find them, though. Mother and father hung all of those paintings over the entrances, suits of armor and tapestries to deter you from tapping at walls."

"But you know them? The passages? Are there many? Where do they go? How long have they been here?"

Elsa kept leading, picking her way over crumbling stone and damp walls, pressing a hand behind her to warn Anna of false steps and low hanging rafters.

"A castle of any sort has passages, hidden rooms, escape routes should the palace fall under siege. Upon my return to Arrendale, the Councilor Regent gave me a short tour of the direct routes out of the castle. I hadn't heart to tell him that I already knew of them all."

"So you were able to get out? You weren't so cooped up?" Anna asked.

"No. I never ventured outside the grounds, for I knew I lacked control. I did come to know the passages. They were my friends, in some respects. Passages in the castle, passages in time, I came to regard them with the same wonder many children do with their peers. I even went so far as to experiment with them, when I was feeling particularly restless. Here we are."

Elsa's voice echoed in the cavernous room. The walls were not so claustrophobic as the navigated passageways, and light seeped through thin windows running parallel to the ceiling of the cavern. A right triangle of darkness, with a hypotenuse of stardust.

"Where are we?" Anna asked.

"From some very general estimations, I believe we're under the ball room. Listen," Elsa said, shutting her eyes. "You can hear the water from the fountains in the gardens. And those windows, they're the bases of the large exterior stained glass. You can see the bottoms of the collage, the black buffering iron."

"Oh, I would have never figured that out."

"Sure you would have. You're clever, Anna, if you only took the time to put that head to use before that body ran away with you."

"You weren't complaining about my body earlier tonight," Anna said, resting fisted hands on gentle hips.

"Would you like to sit?" Elsa asked, changing the subject.

_Too fast,_ Elsa thought. _Anna needs time to process emotionally. She seemed so vulnerable in that sliver of silk, body so bare and perfect in the water of the bath…_

Elsa stared at the light, watching it dance on the far side of the floor. It began to shift.

"Here it comes," Elsa said, and the floor burst into color.

The aurora was a unique sight, unlike the rich colors of the imported rugs, the bold reds and purples of market fruits, the soft, easy browns and greens of the surrounding forests. These colors were not constant; they shifted and moved, something fruit and forest and rug could not do. The gradients melted into each other like candle waxes, fluttering from aquamarine to blue to lavender to cerulean to emerald in a blink.

"It's beautiful, Elsa, really, but I've seen the aurorae before."

"Give me a moment."

Elsa began to move about, spreading her fingers wide and extending her arms from her sides. She pressed the air as if she were pressing against walls, and then rotated, slowly from the hips, 360 degrees to cover the room in its entirety. Translucent blocks of ice grew like something organic, vines of hoarfrost creeping in between brick mortar to form a reflective pallet. The floor iced itself with a stamp of her foot, and a few strategically angled blocks threw the light onto the reflective mirrors, bathing the room in the dancing color.

Elsa watched her younger sister's face as the colors grew, from a single surface to something more three-dimensional. They were surrounded, painted, drowning in aggressive color, and it was the best breathlessness Elsa had ever only darkness in the room came from their multiple shadows, slim black body shapes juxtaposed with belligerent rainbows.

"Elsa," Anna said, skidding towards a yellow wall. It shifted to orange, then turned deeper, mustard with red tints, and the princess seemed to fall into the color itself like some natural camouflage. "This is— I can't…"

Elsa twirled absentmindedly on the ice, but found her sister staring at her.

"This is more than beautiful. _You _are more than beautiful. It's like I'm in another world, like we're not even in the castle anymore. There's no cold and there's no court and no merchants. To hell with tax relief and dignitary dinners and something as gross as lutefisk, Elsa, _this_… this is sublime."

"I'm so glad you enjoy it. It does make one feel… well, it's as you say. Something more than beauty, more than nature. Nature, _enhanced_ if you will. Transcendent."

"Is that what we are?" Anna asked, sliding toward her sister.

Elsa took her hand and steadied Anna over the kaleidoscopic surface. Their shadows kissed against the color spectrum.

"What do you mean?"

Anna looked up at her sister and ran the back of a finger along the Queen's nose. She studied her countenance with a seriousness Elsa didn't realize the younger girl could harbor, mouth barely open as her fingers migrated to the loose tendrils of white framing her face. Anna's lips touched Elsa's like a brush to canvas, swiping color onto something stark, giving life to the unanimated.

Elsa's hands found Anna's waist. She could feel the vertebrae from the princess's spine through the robe, the muscles of her lower back under her palms. Anna retracted and came back again, running her tongue along the thin, slick muscles of Elsa's lips.

"We, that is, _us_," Anna said. "We are transcendent. Nature made us sisters. But nature _enhanced_, sort of like you. Enhanced, we could be…more."

"More."

"More is… good?"

Elsa kissed Anna on her lips, her cheek, and moved her mouth to a spot below Anna's ear. When the younger hissed and instinctively moved closer to the elder's body, Elsa smiled.

_Her marvelous skin._

"More is… sublime," Elsa answered.

Anna was ready to reengage, but Elsa held a hand between their bodies.

"I wonder, Anna, if you know what 'more' entails."

Anna stared back at her with Olaf's classic clueless expression.

"Physically," the Queen clarified.

"Well, I know there are some things that people do when they're more… intimate? Is that correct? I don't think I like just saying 'more'."

"Would you rather I refer to you as my lover?"

"Elsa!"

"What? Isn't that what 'more' means? What else would you have me term it?"

"Well," Anna huffed. "How do you know you're not _my _lover?"

"Oh, so we're going to play it that way," Elsa teased, nipping Anna's lip.

"So we're each other's lovers," Anna said. "And this." Another kiss, deep. Another hiss, followed by a gurgle that descended to a growl. "I _really _like this. And I'm not as immature as you think me, sister."

"I never thought you immature," Elsa said. "Merely uninformed."

"I am… that," Anna said. "But I want to be informed, Elsa. I do, and you could… show me?" she said, coyly reaching for the tie on her sister's robe. "I know there's the bit with the kissing, and the touching, and I'm pretty sure it all leads down this direction," she said, hands traveling farther south along Elsa's navel.

"Is that right? And you like skin so much, well, you _would_, what with not really feeling any for so long. And I love the contact, it's so… so… _buzzing_, is that a thing?" Anna asked, untying her own robe. She shoved Elsa's hands on her naked torso, reds and purples staining her skin like a tattoo from the night sky.

_Oh, she felt so… just, magnificent._

"Yes," Elsa said, forcing control over her hands. The Queen hung her head as she withdrew her touch. She, unfortunately, had a lot of practice with personal control. "But I can't help but feel we should take this a little slower, Anna. I've never done anything like this with another person, though I know the specifics. I'm assuming you've not."

"You mean, kissed?"

Elsa wanted to slap her palm to her face, but couldn't bring herself to hurt the younger girl's feelings merely because _she_ was sexually frustrated.

"Well yes, _kissed_, and what follows from that."

"I don't know what follows from that, so I can't tell you if I have or haven't."

"Leave it to you to make me vocalize it," Elsa sighed. "Anna, that animal in your stomach that you were mentioning earlier? That's called arousal."

"I kinda figured that."

"The way you want to touch me, to kiss me, the way I want to hold you, to bring our bodies together, to be… well…" Elsa couldn't think of a diplomatic way to phrase it. "To be _inside_ one another Anna. It's what connects us. Not just our bodies. But up here," she said, and brought Anna's forehead to her own. "And here, especially here," Elsa said, and placed a cool palm over the center of Anna's chest. She brought her sister's to her own bare breast and held it there.

"You feel that?"

"Your heart?" Anna asked.

"And yours. That's where you are Anna. It's where you always have been, where you're always going to be. Call it fate, or magic, or circumstance, but you've never been anywhere but right there."

"Thank you, Elsa. I… I love you. More than a sister. More than a lover, or whatever it is that we are. I love you… what was that word we used? Transcendent? I love you above and better and more than whatever the world saw fit to make us originally. I love you transcendentally."

"Then we'll love each other that way. I think we always did. But slowly, and, this might be the hard part for you, quietly."

"Quietly? Why do we have to be quiet?"

"This is literal and figurative, Anna. As we've said, this is not natural. It can be, _will be_ misconstrued. Discretion will be imperative. You know we are expected to marry for alliances."

"Not that one queen to the southwest! She never married, she used her eligibility as leverage."

"Which I have considered. But that is just it. We must make it _seem_ as though we are eligible. Which is why I put to rest those rumors of any engagement with Kristoff. I hope you can forgive me; I had no right personally, but every right professionally to do so."

"We were never headed for that anyway," Anna said. "He's a dear friend, but I knew, in the back of my head, that one day I'd have to have a second son of another kingdom. Or at least a high ranking baron."

"If I have anything to say about it, you'll have a Queen," Elsa answered. "Again, you'll have her, but quietly. Do you understand?"

"Yes. We'll be us, but secret." Anna rested her hands on her sister's hips. "I don't see anyone around here right now," her small hands drifted over the muscles of her sister's buttocks, and Elsa had to physically shake herself to not give over to the heady sensations.

"Slowly, Anna, slowly. For now, it is very late, and I have a tax agreement to finalize first thing in the morning."

"But we'll still have this, right?"

"This, and much more."

"I'm really starting to like this 'more'," Anna answered, following Elsa back through the passage.

"With time and a little practice, I intend for you to exploit this physicality to the greatest extent of its enjoyment, little sister."

"Practice? What kind of practice?"

"Well, for starters, I've got some plans for your tongue that don't include babbling conversation."

* * *

_**Hope it was worth the wait! Honestly, reviews to me are like a sun tan to Olaf. I cherish all feedback, but any suggestions/comments on diction, structure, syntax, flow or pacing would have me giddy. Next chapter's gonna heat up a bit.**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Thanks for all the love for this piece. Hastily posted, so apologies for any grammar errors. Fun fact, I don't own Frozen. Have at it, all.  
**_

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**Six Weeks Later  
**

"— can't thank you enough, your Majesty," the innkeeper said. "Your benevolence has spared us this season and we are ever grateful. I hope you won't begrudge us, we took the liberty, a small token, really, if you please. The celebration can commence at your word."

The bowing and scraping and fawning continued on into the night. Anna watched as Elsa bent her head and smiled with a practiced sincerity that never betrayed itself. The merchants and shopkeepers had gathered at the inn to celebrate the tax relief Elsa had officially signed into law that morning. Tonight's speech was, as such, an informal formality; a public declaration made by the Queen herself in the workaday environment of the marketplace. The impromptu party followed soon after the announcement.

"Not many ruler's oo'd offer an 'pology like that, ya know?"

Anna overheard a trio of men at the back of the room, gruff voices carrying, inspired by grog and gratitude.

"A right fine queen, she'll be."

"Like her father before her."

"Not exactly. Much be'er lookin' than 'er father before 'er, ya know Sami?"

Anna attempted to temper the fire in her stomach, but the beast residing there stretched and flexed its claws at the drunken man's tone.

"Hold your tongue! That's our Queen you're speakin' of!"

"Queen she may be by circumstance, but woman she was by birth. And _what _a woman. She's above us all, but I like 'em low. I can think of a right place to put that one—"

"Gentlemen," Anna said, twirling with evident displeasure. "I hope my sister's _generous_ offer has pleased you."

"Your highness!"

"Princess!"

The third said nothing, but dropped to his knees with the other two. He was the one, the one who had maligned her sister, even if only to his fellow merchants. Even if only through innuendo. But Anna couldn't handle the perverse talk. Elsa was everything a ruler could be, but, because of something as trivial as her sex, she was cast as the butt of a dirty joke in the corner of a twilit tavern.

"She has given great consideration to her tax relief plan. That Arrendale may once again thrive despite the previous… upset."

"Aye, Ma'm."

"Yes, princess."

Silence.

"I appreciate your comport, that you maintain the upmost integrity and respect when speaking of our Queen."

The gentlemen did not lift their eyes from the floor.

Anna's gaze drifted to the silent third man, the one who had spoken so churlishly.

"And I trust that you will defend her honor to any man who should speak against her. It would bode poorly for anyone who came against such strong men as yourselves. Or…" the silent merchant's eyes glanced up to her. She saw guilt pooling at the creases like acidic tears. "… or anyone who dared slander her in _my _presence."

"Your highness."

"Highness."

The third man spoke to her shoes. "Princess."

"Please, enjoy the festivities. It is, after all, on the house. But take a moment and think about who provides the licenses for your shops." Anna stuck her thumb to her chest, indicating herself. "It wouldn't do to anger those who control the means of your livelihood, all because your tongues started wagging in a tavern."

And with a barely contained rage, Anna turned about in her green dress, approaching the smiling Elsa.

"Anna," Elsa said through a faux smile. "Is everything okay?"

"As good as it can be," Anna said, artificial grin plastered on her face.

Unlike her sister, her manufactured sincerity showed like the counterfeit it was. It had taken all of her self-control and years of castle-training not to give those gentleman what-for with some rambling insults and unseemly, unroyal words thrown in for good measure. She felt a tingle of pride from her composed exchange with the brutish threesome. Knowing how steadfastly Elsa had labored over this bill, fighting the council, convening the merchants, poling the citizens… Anna would not mess it up with her mouth. It had taken weeks, crossing _T_s with quills and ink blots congealing into dotted _I_s. Everything had balanced in the end, but it had nearly taken her sister's sanity along with it. Elsa's nerves slipped between the scales, a fragile lump of clarity that could never quite find equilibrium.

Until today.

Today, it was done.

And on this day, they celebrated.

More like chaperoned, Elsa seated on a makeshift dais with Anna at her side in the oaken tavern, a golden glow of candles and torches bouncing on the walls like a child's ball at play. Shadows danced as did their casters, and drinks flowed like snow from Elsa's body. Castle guards were posted at every exit and at intervals in between, but they could not protect the Queen from the words. That was Anna's job. And she was surprised and thrilled that she had done so splendidly the first time around.

Surprised, though not proud that it had to be done. Elsa was _everything_. Anna had come to see it in the weeks since the cavalcade of colors on her skin, since the inchoation of their taboo relationship. The princess appreciated her sister's devotion to her kingdom, her people, and to the ones she held dear.

And Anna was ready to show her that devotion in return.

To let her know that despite crass jokes in seedy corner rooms, despite the persistent mumbles of 'witch' and 'sorceress', Elsa would never need to worry about what she, _Anna_, thought of her. She wanted Elsa to know that her trust was inherent, authentic.

Elsa, in her characteristic manner, declined dance after dance at the tavern with graciousness, cushioning each rejection with a trained brilliance Anna could only hope one day to acquire. The younger's breath quickened, her pulse raced, and her feet throbbed after the fifth traditional dance of the evening. She collapsed gracelessly into the stool situated near her sister's spot.

"You seem to have enjoyed yourself," Elsa said.

"I did! I haven't danced the Försvunna in years!"

"Nor I."

"Then why not join in?"

"A Queen presents herself in certain ways. I'm going for compassionate, but aloof."

"You just want to be the mom everyone wants more attention from."

"Are you saying I'm neglecting your interests?" Elsa asked.

"No, but I wouldn't mind a bit more interest in one particular department—"

"Your majesty," a royal guard bowed at the waist, carriage rigid and straight like the masts of a ship. "The innkeeper has prepared the topmost floor for your disposal should you wish to stay. Another token of his hospitality, as compensation for the tax withdrawal."

"His generosity is most appreciated," Elsa said. "The castle is only minutes away, yet it would do to let my people see that I'm not so different from them. That I enjoy the same celebrations that they do, that I eat the same meals, that my head rests on similar pillows."

Elsa eyed the commoners, merchants toasting and barmaids surging past the attendees, trays laden with foamy steins.

"The rooms, which floor is it?"

"The third, your majesty. All other rooms have been vacated."

"Do yet another sweep. Make sure no other patrons are staying on the same floor. The princess and I will retire upon your return. Post two guards at the third floor landing, another four at the base along the second floor stairway. We will stay here for the night, but I do not wish to be disturbed."

"As you say, your majesty. But no guards outside of your door?"

"There are many doors on the third floor, Ser… what is your name and rank?"

"Lieutenant Floren, your Majesty."

"Lieutenant, there are many doors, all of which I hope to be empty, save two. Would it not be obvious that the door with guards posted out front of itwould be the most likely place to look for the Queen or Princess, should anyone attempt to breach the defenses for nefarious purposes? I don't wish to draw attention to whichever room I or the princess chooses."

"As you say, Ma'am. A wise strategy."

"Just because I rule from the throne does not mean I am unfamiliar with shell games in the market, Lieutenant. Please notify the Captain."

"Your Majesty."

Another bow, and Anna could only marvel at the deftness and reason that Elsa had articulated to the young soldier. She had solidified her position as a sympathetic member of society, conceding to stay in the very inn as the merchants she had just relieved monetarily, and yet retained her noble station with a strategy resembling that of a seasoned general.

"Anna, shall we adjourn for the evening? I'm not so tired, but I'd like some down time before we sleep."

"Sure, yes. My feet will thank me for it later."

After the Captain concluded the third floor sweep, the folk in the pub bid good night to their sovereign and her sister. But after the pair rounded the second floor landing, the band struck up again without a second thought. The music was deafening.

The Lieutenant left the Captain at the second floor, and took Anna and Elsa to the topmost landing, quaint, with a spacious hallway leading out into six rooms.

"Your Majesty, are you sure you do not require a guard posted outside of your rooms? I do not mean to question your orders, but the protocol—"

"I appreciate your attention to procedure, Ser, but I assure you," Elsa flicked a finger, and a shard of ice the length of a steel sword appeared in her palm. She waved it, proficient and cheerful, as if she were playing with a puppet instead of a weapon. "I don't fear for my safety. And those who might try to harm the princess will have to get through three floors of guards as well as myself."

Anna saw Elsa's eyes flash like the spark of flint to steel, like those weeks ago when she lit the candle in the dark tunnel. The Lieutenant recognized the look; battle-hardened and determined. His actions were telling: he saluted first, for he now saw his Queen as a warrior; he then bowed; bid goodnight to the two women; and retreated to the bottom of the second floor landing where he took his post for the night. Elsa dropped the shroud of queenliness and with it her ice sword, both dissolving as the pressure of public appearance gave way to the simple act of being with Anna.

"Finally," she said.

"It's been suuuuuch a long day," Anna complained.

"It's over for now, and all settled. It took much longer than I thought." Elsa set about to freezing the frames of each door, ice crawling over wooden supports with precise direction.

"What are you doing?" Anna asked.

"Doubling the privacy. Well, tripling," Elsa said. "Which room would you like?"

"Does it matter? It looks like you're freezing all of them."

"One can never be too careful in such instances," Elsa said.

"Here's fine," Anna said, approaching one of the two unfrozen doors. She assumed her sister would take the other, drifting off into whatever dream monarchs slept the sleep of. "I suppose I'll… see you in the morning," Anna said, unable to disguise her disappointment. "Unless… well…"

Elsa looked up from freezing the edges of the final door. "Unless what?"

"You wanted to stay with me?" Anna asked tentatively.

Elsa eyed the corner of the staircase that led back to the room of celebrators. Guards stood straight, austere figures patrolling while others tossed out drunken rabble-rousers. It was so loud she could barely distinguish what sounds came from which floor, whether there was knocking on the ceiling or from the basement, the band drunk and energized enough to continue well into the wee hours…

"Yes," Elsa breathed.

"You… you will?"

"I will," the Queen said. "If… if you'll have me."

"Oh, _finally_," Anna moaned, and grabbed her sister's waist.

"Wait, one last thing." Elsa magicked two immense blocks of ice at both ends of the hall, muffling the beats of the drum and the drone of the pipes. Sounds reverberated but never fully registered in Anna's ears. They had six beds, five decoy rooms, ice blocks, guards, and the privilege of a party below them.

Anna shook with anticipation, staring at the icy blockade.

"Thank goodness," she said.

"What?" Elsa asked.

"If it's anything like I think, I'm probably going to be rather… vocal. Thanks for the sound buffer," she said, and pulled her sister in for a kiss.

They stumbled into the back left room of the six doorways to be met with a blazing fire and warm, red-brown tones papering everything from seating to walls to linens. Anna wasted little time in removing the pins and ties that held her hair in its convoluted updo, wanting nothing more than the sheer release that came with not being in front of hundreds of eyes.

"Anna…" Elsa said, batting at her sister's hands. "Maybe we should slow—"

"I'm tired of slow," Anna said. "It's been weeks, no… months, Elsa. I want you, I _love_ you. And we're ready."

"Are we?"

Anna looked up, the orange of the room out of place with the cool tones her sister usually emitted.

"Are you?" Anna asked.

Elsa took a calming breath and shrugged her shoulders. She blasted the door frame with one last sealing of ice, cutting them off from the rest of the tavern, the rest of the _world_, for all Anna cared.

The Queen's hands shook as she removed her crown and placed it gently onto the bedside table. "I've been ready. But I want you to know what you're in for, Anna. I don't want to run you off. I can't…"

"Can't what? There's nothing you can't do."

"I couldn't lose you again."

"You didn't lose me in the first place, if I recall correctly," Anna said, nuzzling Elsa's hairline. "The only thing you lost was something worth losing, in my opinion. In these past few months, you've ruled without the... hmm, what's the word? 'Restraint' of those who came before you. The tax relief is unprecedented! You're setting new ground for Arrendale, all because you _lost_ that fear that held you back. And we've been through this, well, the prelude to this, in passageways, behind curtains, my bedchamber, that one time in the stables—"

"Anna!"

"I'm not sorry. I'm going to kiss you, and keep kissing you when we're alone. I'd kiss you on the throne if that meant I could take you there as well."

She could not tell if it was light from the fire or a blush that tinted Elsa's cheeks, but either way, Anna found her ravishing.

"We've taken it slow. And I'm ready. And you're ready, too. You're… you're not going to injure me, Elsa. I'm not as fragile as your snowflakes."

"You promise?"

"I swear. On my love for you. And chocolate fondu, which is a close second," Anna winked.

"So I can touch you… here?"

"Yes."

"And… here?" Elsa asked.

"Yes."

"What about here?"

"Oh my— _yes_."

"And…"

"ELSA!"

It wasn't long before the royal duo was stripped and panting, throats raw from stifled cries and bodily crevices slick with fluids. Anna blew forcefully against the strands of Elsa's hair that had taken residence in her mouth, that platinum curtain splaying wide like a curved sickle over the younger girl's face and torso.

Anna licked the ridges of Elsa's breastplate, straying to those tight tendons the Queen held in her neck everyday at court. Taught and unyielding, as if she might unleash an edict or her wintry wrath merely from the muscles encasing her throat.

Anna was doing all she could to hold her body up on her elbows, Elsa's persistent weight pressed atop hers.

The Queen herself was preoccupied with _skin_. She had been similarly fascinated since their physical relations had increased with some frequency: with the taste, the feel, even the sound of skin chaffing against more skin. There was only so much the Queen could chance before, chaste kisses and overlong touches in the castle hallways, hugs in the morning and loaded looks over the dinner table. But now, she ran her nose down the center of Anna's torso and nibbled a protruding hipbone, salivating like a wolf with cornered prey.

It should not have been invasive when Elsa's hand came to clutch at Anna's core… but it was. Foreign, and invasive, and tantalizing like those alien diplomats from distant continents, bringing exotic gifts that just needed to be cherished. That was the way Elsa held her, the way she caressed her stinging center, like she was a breakable antique from long ago and far away, that one slight twitch of her fingers would have Anna shattering like an imported vase on a harsh stone floor.

Elsa, however, had more control over her little sister than she did over her snow powers. Anna would never admit_ that_ to her in a moment of coherency, but she found herself melting into, onto Elsa, and the prodding of fingers along smooth, visceral walls became dancing colors and crafted ice sculptures and warm hugs and everything Anna had ever valued in life.

Repeated insertion, retraction, and the addition of another digit led to primitive abandon: nails tore at pale, ivory flesh; red lines ran along the Queen's spine like bloody sleigh tracks in snow; breathing became laborious. Anna inhaled but never released, like a crying child holding its breath longer and longer, face contorting, cheeks flushing, mouth an 'O' of understanding and satisfaction.

Anna could feel the scream building, like to shatter those icy blocks in its insistence on being heard. The blonde swallowed the sound with the attachment of her lips to Anna's. Elsa's hand tunneled furiously into the slot at the apex of the younger girl's legs, and flicked, expertly, until the princess's contraction had suctioned the Queen's fingers _just there._ And Anna couldn't remember what a tax or an inn or even a snowman was.

She was shaking, physically wobbling on the bed sheets of the four-poster. Elsa kissed her shoulder, the saucer-like discoloration at the tip of her breast, a fingertip, an eyelid. She was the first thing Anna saw when her muscles relaxed, her pulse stopped throbbing, and her mind regained some semblance of lucidity. The Queen rubbed the sensitive part at the back of Anna's knee, which sent her leg jolting, needle-pricks crawling over her spent form.

"Anna?"

"Ehhm?"

"I love you. I can't believe how much, it… it frightens me."

"Don't be… don't be scared," Anna huffed. "I'm the least threatening person you'll come across."

"It terrifies me that I'll do something to you."

"If it's anything like what you just did to me, I can only beg you to continue."

"Anna—"

"Elsa, I love you, and what's more, I trust you. Implicitly. And where trust and love combine, you get-" Anna shot up, all sweaty brows and aftershocks.

"You get, what?"

The sheen on the women gelled, flash frozen in time, suspending them in light and space. A miniature energy cloud erupted like an exploding shell, shockwaves of light and energy pulsing from the pair and rippling over the room in gentle undulations.

Anna and Elsa gasped simultaneously, marveling at the light spectrum and laughing until tears began to fall.

"What is it that you get, sister?" Elsa asked. "When trust and love coexist?"

"Oh Elsa," Anna said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Magic."

* * *

_**That was the match and the kindling. The bonfire comes next. Would love to hear from you! Love or hate, droll or dry, specifics or generals, I'm only here to improve!**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**I know I promised the bonfire, and I'm sorry this isn't it. But as I was editing said bonfire, it whooshed into an uncontrollable conflagration surpassing the 5,000 word mark. I needed to break some stuff apart, so I could put it back together again. Anywho, don't own, never will, just like to take it out to play briefly. Enjoy!**_

* * *

She wouldn't do it. She couldn't let herself. The grainy feeling under her eyelids fought her, moment for moment, but she resisted their prickling, just like she had resisted the cold, the flurries, the wintry mix of sleet and slosh that poured from her body into her room, alone, and tired, so tired…

Elsa's head jolted up when her chin bobbed down to strike the top part of her chest.

"Ow…" she said, rubbing the crick at the base of her neck. She'd fallen asleep on the throne, again, as evening faded into night. The candles were out and the torches were snuffed, but she had not ordered the curtains drawn for the throne room.

She couldn't.

The Queen needed these precious hours before she slept, to concentrate completely on the ice shipment. The further away it sailed, the more effort she had to expend. The Southern continent had never seen such frozen quantities as she was providing, but fees would only be paid if the shipment arrived intact.

And she was the only thing keeping those blocks of ice frozen.

"_You can guarantee these goods will reach my homeland? I was unaware Arrendale possessed such technologies for transport."_

Elsa remembered the conversations with the emissaries, traders from farther south than previous rulers had seen fit to welcome. But the greater the distance, the greater the pay, all for the magic— that is, the icy technologies Arrendale could offer.

"_You have my assurances that you will get everything you pay for, Abdul," Elsa had said. "But ice is not a constant. Especially in your climate. You cannot save it without proper storage, and, once it's delivered, it will not remain frozen beyond three days time."_

Three days… she had promised them three days. The shipment had nearly run its course. Well, her projected shipment, the one that allotted for delays, the one accompanied with a contingency plan. The _actual_ shipment should have arrived five days prior, but she had received no confirmation in missive or message from the captains of her trading fleet. And until that message came through on the talons of her homing falcon, she could devote herself only to the ice's delivery.

Knots formed in her shoulders and the tendons in her throat lunged against their skin casing. She was overwrought, overexerted, muscles taut and straining as her powers crossed oceans to fulfill political promises.

Her concentration was unshakeable. She could have been assassinated, for all the attention she paid to her physical surroundings. Elsa's mind, as well as parts of her body, her soul, her powers and her waning strength, were with the delicate bonded molecules stacked so beautifully, so coldly, leagues away. Whether in ship or port or goblet, she did not know.

She only knew exertion.

And her exertion, her effort, would save Arrendale.

Elsa was unaware of the pressure on the meaty part of her calf, the stiffened muscle being kneaded like dough in a baker's hands.

The rolling force migrated to her left leg, and she felt smooth, legato strokes of heat roam from her ankle to her knee and back again, drift over the bulging muscles behind her shin and tug, rub, squoosh. Muscular tension disintegrated at the hands of the kneeling masseuse.

"Anna—"

"How much longer?"

"Anna, I—"

"How many more days, Elsa?"

"Very few."

"I wish it were zero. You can't keep doing this to yourself."

"I must."

"No. You're wrong. You're the Queen. No one tells you what you 'must' do. You tell you what you must do."

Elsa shut her eyes and inhaled. It took more effort than she would cop to.

"That sounds like a nursery rhyme."

"Elsa, please."

The Queen took Anna's outstretched hand and rose. A stranger would have seen a woman simply standing from a rather imposing chair. But Elsa knew better. The tension was sloughing off of her like something dead: used, recycled, and reused, she wrung every ounce of power she had like a washer wrung wet linens. They would be clean and usable again, but not before some uncomfortable warping.

"Come to my chambers."

"Anna, I can't."

"Not for that. How could you even— I want to _help _you, Elsa. You're injuring yourself," Anna said. "Come, please."

This was not one of her finer moments. Her younger sister playing cane and crutch to the monarch-sorceress of Arrendale.

It was embarrassing.

"I didn't know it would take this much out of you," Anna mumbled.

The hallways were dark and soundless, and the carpets absorbed her voice.

"I would never have let you do it."

"Weren't you just saying that no one tells me what to do other than myself?" Elsa tried for levity.

"Except for me. You cannot do this again."

"I may have no choice, Anna. But with time, I'm sure I'll be able to channel it. The power is there, but the distance is troublesome. The climes of the lower latitudes—"

"When this is over, the only lower latitudes receiving any attention from the monarchy of Arrendale will be _yours_," Anna said, mischievously. "But for now, rest. Let your mind wander."

"I don't think I can. This maiden voyage is too important. I need this time to get myself together. My mind wanders only to the Southern Continent."

"You have to sleep. You'll only be worse off if you don't take a few hours."

Anna led Elsa to her bedside and pushed her down to the mattress. She turned back, shut, and locked her bedroom door.

Elsa took it all mainly because she hadn't the strength to resist. Anna kneeled and began unlacing her shoes. She slipped them from Elsa's feet, and then lumbered to the other side of the mattress to take down her hair. Anna's fingers combed through her braid and down to the button-eye hook at the nape of her neck. She undid it and slipped the gown from Elsa's arms, her torso, over her hips, and off completely. Anna did the moving for her, for Elsa was now so spent she had turned a whiter shade of pale.

Anna guided Elsa's head to the pillow, stomach-down against the plush woven blankets in her slinky shift.

And then Anna mounted her, hands on her body, squeezing, massaging the depressions between cervical and thoracic bones, traveling outwards along tight-rope muscles and stringy tendons to the lateral sides of the Queen's back. Anna was doing her best to rub away the stress, to erase the mark of steadfast attention Elsa felt compelled to maintain. In that action, devoid of anything sexual, Elsa began leaking.

She shut her lids so tightly she thought no tears could escape. But the hot, salty water sought liberation, her eyes frostbitten by sadness.

"Anna—"

"Don't, Elsa. For once in your life, let someone else do something for you."

The princess's hands traveled over her delicate deltoid and clutched at her triceps, milking the muscles of any remaining strain.

"It's my job," Elsa whispered.

Anna crouched low over her back and pressed her face into her sister's ear.

"Not now, not here. You have no job, no duty to me. You can't stop me from wanting to give. I've shown you, and I will continue showing you, though you fight me tooth and nail every time."

Elsa smiled and cried through closed lips and lids, her sister's ministrations and the pull of exhaustion overwhelming. She needed a few hours, just a few, and then back to her sentry, back to her job, because she was the one in charge, she could not falter, and it would all lead to disruption, resentment, because _she_ was the one who messed up in the first place, so she _had_ to fix it, didn't Anna see, she had no choice, it was all her fault, she could shoulder the blame, and maybe, just maybe, the people would look at her as more than abomination—

"Elsa, stop thinking. Just sleep."

It was the first command she had taken from someone since her coronation.

And above her, raining touches and adoration, Anna was formulating a plan.

* * *

_**Oh gosh, didn't mean to pour lighter fluid directly ON the thing... Reviews appreciated :)**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Can't thank you enough for the 100+ follows. That's CRAZY, guys. And now, the much awaited 'M for a reason' chapter, not for the faint of heart or body. I also don't recommend reading this in a coffee shop, bus, or other public place if you're easily bothered because... well, things. I don't own Frozen.  
**_

* * *

**One Night Later**

"Elsa! Elsa! Look at the sky."

Elsa didn't want to look at anything other than the inside of her eyelids.

"Is it awake?" she murmured.

"You know it. Why else would I be here?"

"A number of reasons, knowing you. But please, Anna, I only get so long these days."

"I know, I know, you said as much last night. But this is important, Elsa."

Elsa shifted over to see her sister, wrapped up snugly in a cloak and hat, mittens enveloping her hands and fur-lined boots sneaking up her calves.

Drunk with slumber, Elsa blew a raspberry at her sister and rolled over.

"Anna, what—"

"We have to move!"

"Are we going somewhere?"

"Yes!"

"I don't have time for this."

"Yes, you do. I know how hard you've been working, I wouldn't insist if this wasn't extremely important."

Elsa groaned, resigning herself to another night of lost sleep.

"Fine then."

Elsa threw back her duvet and rose, creaky limbs unfurling like wrinkled fabric.

"You might want to bundle up," Anna said, striking a long match and lighting a lantern.

Elsa rolled her eyes.

"I mean… sorry. You don't need anything, just follow me."

And, to Elsa's surprise, Anna hopped through the hatch in her floor, the one she had shown her roughly two months ago.

Another groan, but Elsa grabbed a pair of all-purpose shoes from the foot of her bed. She was still so groggy, she slipped on the final rung of the ladder. Thankfully, Anna caught her close, bonking her elbow with the lantern.

"Ooof!"

"Sorry, sorry," Anna said. "Maybe you're more awake now, though?"

"Harumph."

Didn't Anna know? They were of the same ilk, when it came to slumber patterns.

"Please, indulge me Elsa. This might take a while."

"Annaaaaaaaa—"

"No talking."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. Shhhhhsh!"

Elsa should have known better, showing her sister a secret passage way. While she was wrapped up in meetings, hours focusing on ice shipments leagues away, Anna was probably getting herself into loads of trouble, under the castle, outside the castle… There were treacherous spots in these tunnels. Anna could very well fall down a crumbling cavern without a soul knowing. It was testament to her exhaustion that Elsa did not chastise her.

Elsa followed her sister, more somnambulist than active participant in the shady journey. The rocks and walls dissolved into each other, and soon, the Queen was at a loss as to their location in the passageway. The turns were unfamiliar, the ground dank like earth, not cool like stone.

They were out of the castle.

"Anna, how long have we been walking?"

"I told you to keep quiet."

Her voice cut the night like a sword, and Elsa was taken aback.

"But—"

"Elsa!" Anna pivoted forcefully, holding the lantern up to Elsa's face, the bright light puncturing her vision like miniscule injections of magma.

Elsa could hardly make out her sister's expression in the coal-black air. What little she did see was unsettling. Anna was grave, dark half-moons under her usually bright eyes.

"I'm not going to ask you again. Stop. Speaking."

Elsa raised her hands defensively, and kept walking. When they hit portions of tunnel with drafty spaces, she was confused. When they approached the incline, she tried to figure out their location. And when Anna set her to climbing, she grumbled and huffed like a tired twenty-something, not a demure Queen.

"Wait," Anna said.

Elsa wanted to reply that she was hanging nearly thirty feet in the air on cold rock, she couldn't very well _go_ anywhere if she had chosen to. Anna disappeared through a crevice and Elsa could feel vibrations, tiny movements coursing through her handholds as she lingered, patiently, while her sister did gods knew what.

Elsa's head came forward and hit the smooth surface of the rock.

Repeatedly.

_Anna, just WHAT are you doing?_

"Come now, Elsa."

She hefted her weight above her, feeling for fingerholds as she tracked her sister's voice. The acoustics played tricks with her hearing, so when a hand darted out from rock to roughly clasp her arm, Elsa was thankful instead of alarmed. Better being manhandled than falling to one's death in a slimy, cave-like shaft.

And then her eyes adjusted. And her ears popped. And her jaw just… dropped.

Everything was echoey. The sisters stood in a spacious, hollowed shelf of worn stone behind one of the waterfalls across the fjord. Rushing waters splashed and roared, but Elsa could still make out the sound of tiny drips and Anna's humming over her shoulder.

Anna… _Anna_.

Her sister sat on a smooth stone ledge, legs crossed and unsmiling, between two metal drums holding fire. The flames poked at the cavern walls, but the shadows shattered and scattered as they hit the curtain of water. There was privacy here like Elsa hadn't experienced since building her ice palace on the North Mountain. There looked to be a rug at Anna's feet, and something in her hand.

But Anna was… unreadable and… almost… intimidating. It was eerie, her lack of emotion, for Anna was always the more expressive of the two. But what she lacked in facial communication she made up for in attire. Gone were her cloak and gloves, boots and hat. It was simply Anna, a bit of black fabric, and…

Elsa gulped.

_Skin_.

No wonder she'd positioned herself between the braziers. Her outfit was more absent than present, and the pieces slowly began clicking into place for Elsa. Seductive, yes. Lustful, licentious… her eyes roamed her sister's body. _Definitely_.

But timely? Certainly not. She approached her sister with a defeated shrug, sad she would have to disappoint her.

Again.

"Anna, it looks like you've gone through a lot of trouble—"

"Did I say you could speak?"

"No."

"Then why are you talking? Don't answer that," Anna said. She had her right arm propped over her bare knee, bare _leg_ from what Elsa could make out, and was swinging a furled parchment absentmindedly.

Red wax in a circular pattern had been broken. It was a message, imprinted with the Royal Seal.

Elsa opened her mouth to inquire, but Anna raised a challenging finger.

Elsa rolled her eyes for the second time that night, and then pointed at the parchment.

"Oh this?" Anna said. "A quick bedtime story. Have a seat."

Elsa crossed her arms and stamped her foot in irritation, the thinnest sliver of ice coating the floor. If it was an official document, she should have read it in council hours ago—

"I'm sorry. What part of that sentence made you think the order was optional?"

"What the hell, Anna?!"

"Sit down, and maybe I'll let you know. And don't talk back. You have one mark against you."

Ridiculous. Absurd. Silly. The thick of night, and Anna wants to play some twisted story time, drags her out to a cave halfway up a sheer cliff—

"And thaw this floor. I'm not going to trip because you can't control your temper."

Elsa was irritated, but managed to thaw the floor. She sat on the rug, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"To Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elsa of Arrendale," Anna began, rising from her chair like a knight mounting its charger. Her movements were usually so spastic, unpracticed. But tonight, there was refinement in her strut that zapped every ounce of fatigue from Elsa's body and replaced it with confusion bordering on anticipation.

"His Majesty, the Lord Sultan of the Lower Lands, Ruler of Al-Kemesh, Omar Basir al-Fuad, etc., and so forth, extends his gratitude to the Kingdom of Arrendale, its people, its monarch, for their crystalline coolants, those blocks of solid cold that the lower lands have heard tell of, yet never exploited. The ice lasted not three, but five days, and further quantities materialized even after the agreed upon shipment had been disbursed. Parties were had and ice released to the open marketplace, inspiring a spike of economic advancement the merchant class had not seen in weeks. Compensation will be sent back with your fleet, and we hope that this exchange is the first of many…

"I believe you get the gist, Elsa," Anna finished, stopping behind her crouched sister.

The letter floated into her field of vision and Elsa snatched it up, scanned the lines, and breathed without a blacksmith's anvil latched to her chest for the first time in weeks. Her shoulders slumped, her back curved, as if her body would fall in on itself.

"How… why… when did you get this?"

"This morning."

"Then why not tell me immediately!" Elsa said, whipping around to face Anna.

"And miss out on all of this fun? Elsa, you _know_ me. I couldn't pass up a bit of entertainment, could I?"

"You have some warped ideas of fun. This wasn't fun for me."

"If you stopped giving me lip like that, maybe it could be."

Elsa eyed her sister again, chin tilted at an alarming obtuse angle as Anna yanked her head back.

"We're going to have sooooo much fun," Anna said, voice low, thrumming with the rush of the waterfall. "Under one condition."

"What's that?"

"You think it was rude of me to wake you, to drag you out of bed, to keep you waiting, knowing that the letter had come hours ago?"

"Correct on all three counts," Elsa challenged.

"Well, I was only doing what you dislike, so you didn't have to do it anymore."

"And what was that?" the Queen asked.

"Giving orders. Making commands. I thought, maybe I would be Queen for a while." And with that, Elsa's slight crown materialized in Anna's hand, and she twirled it around her finger with a wry smile.

"What in the _hell_ do you think you're doing?!" Elsa gasped, scrabbling at the cave floor, trying to find traction. She was in Anna's face in seconds, fuming, or… frosting. She would have thought the threat of freezing behind a waterfall would break Anna's resolve, but the red-head's face remained stoic.

"You drag me out here to this abandoned old shaft, where you can hardly see two feet in front of you, can't hear a thing over that damned waterfall, read me that letter just so you can screw with me?"

"Not screw _with _you. Screw you." Anna bit Elsa's chin. "Hard."

Elsa went rigid as a maypole.

"I— uh, what, huh?"

"I get so _bored_ of all those directives you issue. 'Relieve the tax debt, set sail for the trading posts, no chocolate for dessert, convene the council at noon'. Really, Elsa. I'm doing you a favor," she said, and placed the crown primly atop her own head. "I'm relieving you of your duty. Tonight, you don't have to worry about giving orders. You just have to take them. And after all your hard work these past few weeks, don't you think it's my job, my _duty_ to relieve some of that stress?"

And, breaking character so quickly she might have missed it, Anna grinned with a wink and kissed her sister's cheek, all in the span of half a second.

"Oh yes," Anna continued, voice back in the lower register, expressionless. "That little outburst will cost you another mark. You're up to two."

"Two, what?"

"You have to wait and find out," Anna answered. "Now, no more talking. I want you to do what I tell you to. Then maybe, if you're good, you can do the same for me. Do you understand?"

Elsa nodded.

"We'll start slow, since you seem to be a little behind. How about a kiss?"

Elsa leaned in.

"Nah-ah," Anna raised a chiding hand. "We need to work our way up to that."

Elsa took her sister's hand and placed her lips to a knuckle, lingering over the peachy skin. She rotated Anna's hand and found the pulse point on the interior of her wrist and, with a steadfast stare at her sister, kissed, then sucked the bluish veins pulsing there.

"Bold little thing, aren't we?" Anna said, removing her hand. Her fingers slid down Elsa's bare arm too slowly, like sap on bark. She captured Elsa's left pinky in her hand and lifted it, studied it, and smirked at it. "You'll pay for that later."

Anna took the digit in her mouth with no preamble and swirled, tongue manipulating the finger as a twirler did a baton.

But this was no carnival. There were no games, nor fools, no jokes nor jugglers nor baton twirlers.

Anna was seducing her sister in a remote cavern.

And Elsa was loving every second of it.

"Take your hair down," Anna instructed, wiping spittle from her mouth with the back of her hand. "I'm tired of doing it for you."

Elsa reached behind her and removed the snowflake clasp at the bottom of her braid, hair tumbling over her shoulders like a landslide of boulder trolls. She scraped her bangs back over her head to get a look at her sister.

Before she could tuck stray strands behind her ears, Elsa was suffocated by Anna's kiss. Her mouth would be bruised at this rate, the biting arch of Anna's teeth scraping her upper lip. She inserted her tongue in Elsa's mouth like it belonged there, rubbing her hard palette and gums with deft strokes that had the Queen's knees buckling.

"Stand up," Anna growled, extricating her tongue from Elsa's mouth.

Elsa vaguely registered a hand at the curvature between waist and hips, but the command didn't make it to her grey matter.

Anna kept kissing her, and Elsa kept melting.

"I said, Stand. Up."

The princess thrust her loincloth-clad pelvis into the Queen's hips and _bit_ her.

"Aaah!" Elsa grasped Anna's arms for support. Her knees were shaking, but she used what little cognition remained and willed her joints to straighten, to solidify.

She could stand still, that is, if she could still stand. Anna couldn't have her withering with just a kiss, right? A forceful, possessive, heady kiss. She could handle this. She could handle her sister… Right?

_Right?_

Anna was out of her arms and perched on her seat again, her stone throne. The princess's bust strained against a barely-there sweetheart brassiere, and the loincloth slit did nothing to cover thigh, hip, or abdomen as Anna readjusted. She spread her legs, black flap covering her center and feet planted firmly on the ground. She pointed at the spot between her legs and snapped her fingers.

"Here."

Elsa walked in front of her sister and stopped just shy of the throne. She couldn't look at Anna without her cheeks turning magenta.

"I see you've worn your ice shift to bed."

A nod.

Anna was in no rush. Again, unlike her. Elsa marveled at her legs, her dainty toes, the jut of her jaw line and the abandon of her hair, untamed and free from the twists of her workaday braids. Caramel waves spilled and clouded Anna's empty face. As if she knew Elsa was fixated, the princess twirled a ringlet with a finger.

"Once you're done gawking…" Anna began. "Strip."

Elsa's eyes bulged, but she lifted a hand.

"No magic. I want to watch you."

"Uh… oh, okay."

No matter how simple the knot, Elsa's trembling fingers were having difficulties loosing it from its cinch. She tugged once, twice, exhaling when the string finally gave on the third pull. She rolled her shoulders in a strange mix of discomfort and eagerness. She still had three ties to go.

"Let's not be all day about it," Anna commanded, slumping lazily against one side of the protruding stone bench. She whipped her foot around the back of Elsa's legs and drew her closer, four knees nearly knocking against each other.

Elsa's movements quickened, and with her action, a clumsiness returned she thought she had shed in girlhood. Queens were adroit, not inept, but nerves and adrenaline were getting the better of her. As she worked, the shimmery cloth fell open, first over her collarbone, the second loosed tie pulling the fabric to her shoulders, the third shooing the garment toward the crook of her elbows, breasts bare and diaphragm bounding toward the ceiling and then to the floor in rapid succession. Elsa pulled the stringy frost of the fourth bow tie to reveal the bone white skin below her belly button. She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her arms, the night dress pooling to the floor like the cantankerous gallons of water rushing over the cliff behind her.

She stepped out of the nightdress and nudged it to the side with her foot.

She wore no undergarments.

"Good. Now turn."

Elsa did as directed.

"Again. Slower this time."

Her sister's blatant voyeurism had her squirming. She clutched at her own thighs to keep from leaping over the stone seat and slamming her face into Anna's.

Anna stood, breaths away from the elder, thumbs rubbing the flat spaces of her fingertips, as if she were prepping for touch.

"And now, a little demonstration. Don't move. I get to move. You do nothing."

Anna skittered to the side, and Elsa had to utilize her peripherals to make out just what Anna was doing. There was skin on her arm, up and down, slinking over her shoulder, her neck, rubbing with earnest friction at the weak spot below her hairline. A single finger traced the cartilage of her elven-like ear, following ridges and indentions slowly, _too slowly_, until the finger dipped into the canal and plugged her hearing. Elsa was struck by this bizarre action, as Anna withdrew the digit and continued her tracing. She introduced another finger to the ritual, and pulled Elsa's body in front of her. The blonde felt the fabric of Anna's attire on her shoulder blades, on the bare skin of her buttocks. The princess's nose found star-colored hair and Anna inhaled deeply, withdrawing both fingers from the ear duct and slipping them back in again.

"You're a smart woman, Elsa," Anna said. She guided long hair over a naked shoulder and pressed brief kisses to her exposed skin, climbing the ladder of Elsa's neck with her lips. She paused, and whispered, guttural murmurs vibrating at Elsa's ear like silken harp strings. "What is this?"

"A demonstration?"

"What else?" Anna asked.

"A… glimpse? Of what's to come?"

"Precisely."

And when Anna drove her tongue into her ear, Elsa's body betrayed her. The Queen was slicker than the damp, mossy rocks below the falls. They were covered in egg-shell foam while she was swimming in a translucent, viscous fluid, physically keening but mentally ill-prepared for her sister's touch.

"Oh, you were never particularly greedy, were you, Elsa? Give, give, give, to them, deny, deny, deny _yourself_. You never really did what _you_ wanted, did you? Tell me, Elsa… what is it that you want? And don't skimp on the specifics. I need to know what you desire so that I can give it to you. I told you I'd never stop trying. I'm very benevolent that way."

"I… I want you to touch me."

Anna held her hand.

"I… I want— I, want you to kiss my… my… chest."

Anna obliged, but it was too brief.

"Details, Elsa. I can't work without them."

"I can't say… Anna, I—" Elsa's head rolled back as a rough thumb assaulted the peak of her breast.

"Shall I take over?" Anna asked.

"I want… that is, I…" Elsa strained into her sister's touch, vanilla exterior melding with the chocolate cloth encasing Anna's intimate areas. "I want you to do to me whatever it is you intended with all of this." She looked down at the rug between the still-burning fires and embers, a mysterious bowl near the flames and the discarded clothing on the cave floor. "And I don't want you to hold back. Not one bit."

"Very open-ended," Anna said. "I love it."

So this time, Anna groped her hips. She fondled Elsa's skin until the hairs on her arms stood erect above their goose-pimples, a forest of shimmery, centimeter-length trees on royal flesh. Elsa fell to her knees on the carpet, Anna diving with her in greedy pursuit. The younger played with the dampness on the interior of her sister's thighs like a child at finger paints, dabbing moisture here, swiping a clear shade there, and then finally dipped into the pot to coat her digit for better coverage of the parchment. Only the canvas was _inside_ of Elsa, and needed to be treated and covered totally. So Anna made long, swirling movements with her finger, dragging and massaging the stiff, slippery space within her sister.

Elsa, after weeks of stress, was on the verge almost immediately. Her taught muscles were flexing further, her synapses clicking and zinging with an unaccustomed ferocity. Pressure dropped in her gut like a cranking wheel, rotating, tightening, tightening…

So when Anna disentangled herself from her sister's middle, leaving her prone form heaving, toes curled into the shaggy fibers of the rug, Elsa whimpered and puttered pathetically.

Anna, composed, pulled the front of the dangling loincloth up to her wet hand, and began wiping the liquefied Elsa from the webbing of her fingers.

"That's one, Elsa."

Elsa was so preoccupied by the inverted triangle of auburn situated at her sister's crotch that she discounted the number. That is, until the veil of black came back to cover the tops of Anna's thighs, and Elsa regarded her, impassive as stone, like the statue she once was.

"One? That was one wha— oh." _Oh_. "Oh no."

"This is your own doing, Elsa," Anna said, making her way back to the fires. She sounded like a tutor, reprimanding Elsa for misbehaving.

Elsa wanted nothing more than to be shoved into a corner and punished repeatedly for her earlier outbursts.

"Come. That is, walk toward me. I can see how that might be misinterpreted."

Elsa dragged herself up from the rug with significant effort. Her body was still suspended in that aching limbo between build-up and release, and it was hell knowing that Anna wasn't going to relieve her for a _second_ time.

Anna instructed her to stand against the cave wall under the burnt orange light, then turned her attention to a small bowl behind the right brazier.

"You know I was never really one for lessons," Anna said, stirring the contents of the bowl with her finger.

_The finger that was just inside—_

"But your determination to trade with the Southern continent got me really interested in our domestic economy. I know our exports are important, but the imports, the specialized goods we don't always get up here, I think they're the best."

"You're more than welcome to sit in on our finance council."

"Tempting," Anna said, withdrawing a slimy finger from the concoction. "But I'd much rather utilize the goods than talk about procuring them. Do you know what my favorites are, Elsa?"

The blonde shook her head.

"The food. The delicacies, the sweets, things I can nibble on."

Anna demonstrated this with a nip of Elsa's neck. Perhaps she lost her train of thought, for several moments later she was still suctioning the skin of the Queen's neck intently, Elsa's own hands embedded in her hair.

The girl in black's hips thrust forward of their own accord once, twice, a third time, until she nudged Elsa's right leg forward and slid her own damp center down the Queen's thigh. She licked her own wet trail on the upward return from Elsa's knee to the juncture of her hip, then drew a golden line of gelatin up Elsa's torso with her pointer finger.

"You know I've got a sweet tooth," Anna said, painting fault lines of honey over her sister's shoulders, breasts, and navel.

Elsa loved the way Anna ate; she was enthusiastic and giddy over certain meals, so much so that she had been given extra etiquette lessons as a child. Anna didn't know she knew. But, if Anna intended to lick her clean like the girl frequently did her dessert plate, Elsa was bound to crack and crumble along the lazy lines of dripping honey.

She started so low Elsa thought she was aiming for somewhere completely different, dragging her tongue over the lump of her pubic bone and north towards her navel, honey mixing with spit and sweat along the way. The saccharine vector continued up between Elsa's breasts and Anna followed dutifully, licking all the way up her neck until the Queen had to tilt her chin backward. Anna's tongue met air and she frowned, surveying Elsa like she was her property.

Both of her brows shot up coyly and the princess gave Elsa _the_ look.

She latched onto her honey-coated left breast.

"Anna!"

Swirl, suck, lave and… _nibble_ as Anna had mentioned, and both Elsa's areolas were stiff and sticky, balmy and sensitized from the princess's mouth.

Anna abandoned the now-sterile left side and moved to the right. The princess seemed to relish cleaning the mess; she had never given as much attention to cleaning her chambers. A free hand came up to reengage the abandoned left breast, rolling the rigid nipple between forefinger and thumb, while her mouth worked at the right.

"Aaaaah, Anna, please," Elsa shook, her hands vice-gripping Anna's skull. She rocked forward, her body lurching into Anna's, seeking friction, seeking some wicked discharge of the damned _pressure_.

"You want me?" Anna asked, humid breaths hurtling over Elsa's chest. "How badly, Elsa?" She licked the fissure where Elsa's breast draped over her ribcage, following the curving swell of her bosom with her tongue tip. Like she was hell bent on making Elsa's flavor an indelible treat for her taste buds.

"Nnnngh… Please, please, Anna. I'm begging."

Elsa blindly groped for Anna's free hand and thrust it between her legs. She wilted at the contact, like orchids after a frost.

"Call me Queen."

"Gods, Anna—"

"Tell me I'm your Queen," Anna said, cupping Elsa's womanhood with the flat of her palm.

Anna tugged whispy white hair back, forcing Elsa to look up to her. Elsa's eyes were uncertain, shimmery with lust. A salt water dam. She saw her own reflection in the crown on Anna's head. _Her_ crown.

Anna plucked at her cortex as she kissed her lips, tongue wrestling with Elsa's until oxygen became necessary.

Anna's two fingers brushed past the barrier and into her femininity, Elsa sagging lower so Anna's digits would penetrate deeper.

"Say I'm your Queen, and I'll give you what you want, Elsa."

"Anna, keep go—"

"Say it!"

"Please Anna."

"Who rules you? Who controls you? Say it, Elsa," and she pinched a fleshy lower lip.

"But Anna, I'm— FUCK! Nnnngh… the Queen."

"No," Anna growled, and hitched Elsa's right leg over her hip. "_I'm fucking the Queen._"

Elsa felt like she was standing at the base of the waterfall. But instead of the fresh, crisp river pummeling her body, sensory stimulation threatened to crush her. She registered the fabric of the loincloth on her calf; Anna's fingers teasing her threshold; the smell of salt from Anna's body; breathy whines mingling with the crying falls; and her precious, precocious, _regal_ lover staring down at her with a hunger for more than honey.

"Please, my Queen," Elsa mumbled, grappling flush against Anna. "All hail the Queen. Please take me."

"I do what I can for my subjects."

Anna shamelessly shoved two fingers into Elsa. She curled them, twisted them, and then reversed her movement, plowing into Elsa's core like a spade attacking wet earth. She withdrew and reinserted at a steady pace, like ocean waves, or a rocking chair. Anna's hips followed her strokes.

"Gods, Elsa, you're _drenched_," Anna squeaked, losing herself momentarily.

Elsa cried out as Anna's thumb depressed the cluster of nerves at the crest of her opening, patting and swabbing the knoll until the elder was like to burst from the blissful irritation.

"Who am I?" Anna asked, as a third digit joined the original duo.

"You're Queen! You're my Queen!" Elsa yelled.

Anna bit her neck for what felt like the thousandth time that night, and sped her pumps. Elsa impaled herself onto Anna's hand, her lifted right leg acting as fulcrum to support the load that was the rest of her reeling body.

"Say my name."

"Please, Anna. Annaaaaah."

"Tell me you love me."

"So much, Anna. I… guh… love you so much."

Everything was starting to collapse, to tumble down, like shooting stars and felled forests and dying days until…

Nothing.

Withdrawal.

Retraction.

Strategic retreat.

Elsa was doubled-over on the floor, arms huddled against her naked, perspiring body, the corkscrew of pleasure so wound and coiled, the brink of release so close she was tempted to finish things herself. She let her fingers drift over her lower curls, until a hand stole her wrist away from its destination.

"Don't you dare," Anna grumbled, flames from the braziers reflecting in her black-blown pupils. "That's two."

Anna threw her wrist back at her and walked towards the waterfall, mist adhering to every pore of her skin. She tested several spots at the falls, arm darting forward into the torrents. She eyed Elsa, who still sat on the floor, and removed the crown of Arrendale. When she felt she could withstand the pressure, she bent her upper body into the gushing waters and began ridding herself of the stick and ick of sweat, sex and honey. Black fabric hung on her body and her hair turned a darker shade of brownish red, cedar strands on apricot skin. She grabbed the crown and placed it at its anatomical namesake.

"Have you recovered?"

"You know I haven't."

There was unabashed guile in the tilt of Anna's lips. She snapped her fingers again.

"Come."

"You won't let me!"

At first, the resulting fit of giggles and guffaws seemed mean-spirited. Elsa was, after all, naked and sexually starved on the floor of a cave. But Anna's face, upon seeing Elsa's defeated expression, lost all trace of unfeeling she had retained for her little game. Gone was the commander, the insensitive, demanding Queen, replaced with that bright ray of light that was unmistakably _Anna_.

"Oh, Elsa," she said, and hopped over to her crouching sister. "This was only ever for you, you know that right? I want to make you feel so good, like you make me feel every day."

Elsa nodded, noting the concern in her sister's voice.

"I really didn't think I took it too far. You were just asking for a third delay when you shoved my hand in your—"

"I know!" Elsa said, raising her hands to her ears.

Anna sat criss-cross on her bum, elbows resting on her knees, chin on her closed fists, open smile and open eyes.

Open heart.

Always open.

"Every night when you went into the throne room to concentrate, you know where I went?" Anna asked.

"The passages?"

"Yes, there, but somewhere else, too."

"Where?"

"The library."

"The library? What were you doing there?" Elsa asked, incredulous.

"Research, obviously," Anna said, offering her hand to Elsa.

The Queen took it and rose from her spot on the ground, following Anna's extended arm as she took her back to the rug.

"And if you let me have you one more time, I'll see if it paid off."

"I can't take another one, Anna."

"Elsa, I _know _how much it took out of you, physically, to get that shipment to the Lower Continent. I could feel it in you, in your muscles, in your mind, when I held you at night. And you were so focused on the ice making it to port, I knew I had no right to ask for your attention. Those weeks before the shipment, the way you made me feel… gods, Elsa. And I was just getting the hang of it—"

"You've certainly gotten the hang of it now."

"And then it just all stopped, for the sake of the shipment, for the sake of the funds, for the sake of Arrendale. You're such a great ruler, and no one will ever really know how great. Well, uh, except for me. So I thought, you know, I could arrange this little tryst. So you could let your hair down, get out from the burden of this," Anna said, pointing to her head haphazardly.

The glittering tiara sparkled in the firelight.

"Let me take you, me, just _me_, Anna. No more Queen black loincloth." The princess removed the crown and set it on the stone seat she had occupied earlier.

"You're not her Majesty, Queen Elsa of Arrendale, and I'm not her Highness, Princess Anna of Arrendale. We're just… us."

"Us?" Elsa said.

"Just us. Elsa and Anna. Like it should be," and she kissed her sister's cheek.

"I'm alright with that," Elsa said, playing with the ends of Anna's wet hair.

"Sit down."

Elsa obliged. "I'm going to have a hard time explaining any rug burns to the chambermaids."

"I'd worry more about the hickeys," Anna said, idly kissing Elsa. Their lips smacked together indolently, sucking and puckering as Anna moved her knee toward the fork of Elsa's legs and rubbed.

"Can we even this out a little bit?" Elsa asked.

"Hey, I took off the crown, didn't I?"

"That's not what I mean."

She pushed the younger girl up so that Anna straddled her slim hips, and slipped the black cloth straps from her shoulder. Elsa encouraged Anna to raise her arms, and pulled the undergarment over Anna's head, releasing her chest. Elsa licked and kissed the tops of her breasts, the slice of the princess's cleavage heated like volcanic rock.

Elsa pulled and tugged at the skirt-like garment on her sister's hips. It flew loose, and Anna made short work of throwing it near its matching top. A bare pair, the girls took their time handling each other, getting reaccustomed to the weight, the flesh distribution, the sensitive areas of each other's bodies.

"What… did you… spend… so much… time… reading?" Elsa asked, peppering kisses along Anna's neckline. She was likewise rising and falling against Anna's fingers this time, but slowly, leisurely, so that every unhurried stroke of her sister's extremities burrowed further, resided longer inside of her, as if Anna could excavate a frozen treasure locked away in the hull of her body.

"This is the perfect time to show you," Anna said, laying her sister back on the rug. "There were these texts from the East, with pictures for reference," Anna said, increasing the velocity of her fingering, adding another to distend Elsa's heated walls. "There were two main things I learned."

"Nnnnnghhhh… Anna—"

"The first was called, 'delayed gratification'," Anna said, kissing her sister's hip bone.

Elsa was soaring somewhere above a blizzard while simultaneously grounded on a shaggy rug in a watery cavern. Anna was biting and kissing and all but swallowing the skin of her thighs, making her way toward their juncture.

Elsa's breathing was disjointed and her back began its warping, ribcage straining upward as she felt Anna's steamy breath on her saturated sex.

"And… the… uh hmmmm… second?" Elsa managed.

"It was this funny word. I really wanted to try it."

Elsa managed to move to her elbows as Anna's hands tightly gripped the flesh above her knees.

"I think the book said, 'cunnilingus'."

Anna's tongue darted forward and split the seam of Elsa's most intimate area. Elsa shot up, vocal chords unwillingly emitting dry cries and wails. She shuddered, convulsions pulsating from her gut and meteors riding her blood stream. Anna speared Elsa's pit repeatedly with her babbling mouth muscle, all that talk certainly good for _something_. Elsa was clawing at the rug, doing her best not to rip Anna's hair follicles from their holds. She felt the cheek muscles of Anna's face bulge in a smile. Suddenly, the younger pummeled the erect hummock of nerve endings at Elsa's middle with her lips and tongue. Elsa exploded; she screamed and creamed and came with a blast of energy that erupted in a mushroom cloud of power and magic.

The fires were no longer burning; flames stood still. The water was no longer rushing, but there was no crackling of crystalline fusion, either. The only sounds were slurps from the younger and relieved sobs from the elder. Ironically, Elsa's mouth was frozen in ecstatic openness. Anna kissed her way back up her sister's body, cradling her close.

"Taste yourself," Anna directed, but it wasn't a command this time.

More of an offering.

Elsa kissed her wet lips and it wasn't sweeter than honey; but it was somehow more special.

"Elsa?" Anna said, dragging her cloak over the pair.

"Hmmm?"

"I love you so much."

"I love you, too."

Elsa could feel Anna shifting, but her senses were still muddled by delight.

"Elsa?"

"…"

"Elsa!"

"Hmmm?"

"You… you, sort of froze the waterfall."

"I'm surprised I didn't freeze the _world_, after that."

"No, like, not frozen, but… just… _look_."

When she rose to look where the waters once ran, she hiccuped in surprise. The water was frozen, not frozen into ice, but it was stationary. Her head jerked back toward her sister and she could see the light from the fires, still bright, still illuminating, but the flames weren't _moving_. Like she had frozen… fire?

"My bad."

"No. My good. I was so good I made you freeze _time_, Elsa."

"I don't… that is, how did I—"

"Later."

They lazed under the cloak for a while, Elsa dozing while Anna played with her hair.

"Elsa?"

"Hmm?"

"I think I know how we can keep the shipments going."

"How?" Elsa said, propping herself on an elbow. The cloak fell to reveal her love-bruised shoulders, pale skin marred by red welts and teeth marks. Elsa assessed her condition, and, with a playful contentment, whacked Anna over the head.

"Look at what you did!"

"Don't change the subject!" Anna said, ducking another blow.

"How can we keep the shipments going?"

"Well, as much as I want your mind on me when I'm making you orgasm so hard you stop the world spinning—"

"Anna!"

"Pleasuring you beyond your wildest dreams?"

"Stop."

"Making you cum so hard it's like you sprung a leak?"

"I've got to get those books out of the library."

Anna sat up and held her sister's hands in hers. "Seriously. When we come together, something happens. I noticed it the first time. Truthfully, I noticed it every other time, but this is astounding," she said, motioning towards the waterfall. "Do you know how much pressure you're holding back? You've stalled… or, _frozen_ nature, Elsa. This massive thing here, this is all you, all us."

"What are you saying, Anna?"

"That next time you make a deal like that for trade, maybe you don't have to keep it up by yourself. I could help you. Knowing you can do this," she said, gesturing toward the column of stilled water. "—a little shipment of ice does not compare."

Elsa stared at the immobile waters, the static light on the cave wall. She was spent, yes, but not in the way she had been over the last few weeks. It was a different type of weariness, with a subcurrent of joy and satisfaction holding it up.

Elsa had never felt better.

"I think it's something to try," Elsa said.

"Good. As you can tell, I like trying new things." Anna heaved her nude form up from under the cloth and stepped closer to the panel that was once a waterfall. She poked her arm in gingerly, testing. "It won't move without me rubbing it all over myself," Anna observed, scooping a handful of water and brushing it over her abdomen. Elsa saw the light of understanding flash for Anna as she thrust both hands into the inert stream. The princess threw the water against her head and it dripped, slowly, still temporally frozen.

"Please, come join me," she beckoned. "We really need to scrub ourselves clean because, well, hmmm," Anna smirked and let loose a throaty chuckle. "You and I are filthy."

* * *

_***hands over imaginary fan to combat any hot flashes***_

_**Confession time! *whispers* I've never written smut before. So, for this EGREGIOUSLY long chapter, you're either welcome, or I'm sorry. I think those are the only two appropriate responses after that. Would seriously love a review, if you please.**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**I'll let you in on a little secret...**_

_**I don't own Frozen.**_

* * *

Anna placed her fork at the top of her plate. The utensil chimed, and the princess dabbed at her mouth with practiced precision, draping the dinner napkin back across her lap with a poise she rarely exhibited. She laughed at an accented joke, and caught her sister's eye at the opposite end of the table.

_So far so good_, she thought.

Anna was perched on metaphorical pins and needles, as well as one particularly plush seat cushion. Elsa was _this_ close to finalizing a two-year deal with the Trade Minister of Toqar (a country with hot weather and deep coffers). She'd not been privy to the logistics of the deal, the Queen of Arrendale and visiting undersecretaries of Toqar having been locked away for hours in negotiations that afternoon. Tonight, Elsa had said, was more of a formality. The deal was struck, and the papers would be signed before the diplomats' departure tomorrow morning. That is, if the dinner went well. Perfectly. No room for poor etiquette, harebrained conversation, irregular behavior of any sort.

"Not that you behave irregularly, Anna. I just want to press upon you the gravity of this meal."

Anna tugged a braid and chewed the inside of her jaw. "Would it be better if I didn't come? I don't know anything about the deal, and my knowledge of Toqar is more than lacking."

"No, you need to be there. It wouldn't look right if the royal family wasn't present. Besides," Elsa said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I want you there."

"What if I screw it up?"

"You're not going to screw it up."

"You don't know that."

"Sure I do. I believe in you. Just be your charming self."

"Charming? Is that what we're calling it?"

"That's what _I _call it," Elsa said, with a brush of lips at her temple.

Which found Anna at the foot of the table, surrounded by dark and graying men triple her age, while her competent, composed, _gorgeous_ sister conversed with the Minister and other guests at the opposite end.

She'd nearly made it through the whole meal without much of a kerfuffle. Her only slip came with a rather awkward snort when one of the emissaries mentioned the Queen's forthcoming ball inviting suitors from the lower lands.

"Had the Prince regent not recently wed the Duchess Carlotta of Narim, his presence would have been assured. I dare say he would have made quite the run for your Queen's hand."

"And would have had just as much luck as the rest…" Anna mumbled over the lip of her wine goblet.

"What was that, your highness?"

"I'm sure your Prince would've made a great match for her, if he is anything like your emissaries," Anna replied.

This earned a booming laugh from the Toqarian undersecretary and a curious glance from her sister. Anna smiled back sedately, reserving her more lecherous gaze for after dinner. She and Elsa had agreed that, for the sake of discretion and the trade, they would refrain from their more amorous activities whilst the Toqarian entourage occupied the rooms in the guest wing. Not that they weren't excessively careful without visitors; the passageways and sound-sealing blocks of ice were a blessing for the duo. But the visit and negotiations had lasted nearly two weeks, and Anna was… well… _frustrated_.

She could hardly look at the head of the table, Elsa all high collars and prim movements, knowing that she could break that shell of equanimity, have the Queen laid out before her, right there on the dinner table, writhing and squealing under her touch—

"Your highness?"

"Yes, Moro?"

"Are you well? You look a bit flushed."

"Do I? I'm sorry. Blame the wine and massive fires. The castle can get really drafty in the winter months."

"You and your sister have been nothing but hospitable to our warmer natures," undersecretary Moro said. "I hope it has not made you uncomfortable?"

"I'm never uncomfortable," Anna said. "Besides, it gives us opportunity to entertain, and my sister agrees. She promised a surprise for dessert!"

"A traditional Arrendale dish, perhaps?"

"I don't know. But Elsa usually has the best surprises."

_Like that one with the scavenger hunt, that led up to the diamond studded-crystal bed in the ice palace, not to mention those icy shackles—_

"And here it is!" Anna said, trying not to once again stop at the intersection of Hot and Bothered.

So when a chocolate mousse was place before her, she couldn't help but frown slightly.

"Not to your liking, Princess?" Moro asked.

"No, no! I love chocolate. It's one of my favorites, just not quite the surprise I was expecting."

She felt a whoosh of cool air trickle down her spine. Never had disappointment manifested itself as such.

"I'm not much partial to chocolate myself," Moro said. "My pension for sweets has decreased with age."

"I hope to never suffer such an affliction," Anna said, raising her dessert spoon in preparation for tucking in.

"It seems as though yours is special, however," Moro said.

Anna looked at the dish.

"What?"

"Maybe your sister knows about your sugary preference. Yours is drizzled in honey."

Anna's head popped up with such force she thought she would snap her neck. As expected, Elsa was staring her down, the left corner of her mouth raised at the slightest angle. Showing off that dimple that Anna _loved_. And the Queen _knew_ it, the tease. At least she was all the way on the other end of the table. She could punish that cheekiness as soon as—

Anna jumped and swatted behind her, turning her head frantically from side to side.

"Princess Anna!" Theodoro, the Toqarian clerk, said at her left. "Is something the matter?"

"There was something on my neck," Anna said, pressing her fingertips to the cooling spot. "Like a… bug… or, something."

All eyes at her end of the table were trained toward her person. The four-or-so emissaries from Toqar were probably itching to see one of the Princess's famed attacks of gaucherie, which Anna could not allow under any circumstances. But there was certainly _something_ on her neck. Like the bristles of a paint brush, or the tassels of a curtain, or a light dusting of snow…

Anna snuck another glimpse at Elsa, not fifteen feet away. She was bantering with Minister Spiro, as if Anna weren't even in the room.

Turning her attention back to her bowl, Anna thought it best to just keep quiet for the rest of the evening. If she could just focus on the food in front of her—

"Hmph!"

She shot up again, her left hand pawing at her right shoulder, trying to get that tingly, tickly feeling to _stop_ before she ruined the whole dinner.

Theodoro tilted his head at her.

"'M fine, really," Anna insisted, and shoved a spoonful of mousse into her mouth.

Cool, pleasant air drifted over her torso, scurrying under her gown, infiltrating the barrier of her corset, puffing between the split of her breasts. She broke out in chills as that odd pressure returned to the squishy spot on her trapezius muscle. Elsa loved that spot. And so did the incorporeal presence, apparently.

She abandoned her food again in hopes of catching her sister's eye. All she managed to do was squirm abnormally in her seat.

"I like it," Theodoro tried. "Creamy, that hint of peppermint underneath."

Anna managed a stilted nod as she discreetly scanned her body. Looking at her arm, she noticed the minute tracks of ivory webbing wind their way up her sleeve, spiral at her elbow, and constrict her bicep. The webbing relaxed and then constricted again, this time on her back, then on her belly, her chin, the arch of her foot.

Oh, dear.

_Oh dear_.

The Queen had not touched her chocolate, hands hidden under the table.

Anna gulped, but not because the chocolate stuck in her throat.

_Surprise_.

Anna wagered her sister had simply gotten too good at control. And with all that control came its opposite, a heedlessness that she wanted to exploit presently. She thought back to the Queen's training, when Elsa had decided to put her powers under scrutiny the first time.

* * *

Upon the discovery that Elsa could freeze more than water, the pair had set about to test the elder's strength with a closed experiment. Roping in the myriad advisory boards was easy, claiming that the tax scheme and offsetting trade deals necessitated these exercises. The servants lit every fireplace and brazier in the ballroom and Elsa filled it with ice, columns and blocks and spheres of frozen water, just to see what type of heat the ice could withstand. That _she_ could withstand.

The first few attempts at maintaining the structural integrity under the blaze of fires were trying; but, as they had discovered at the waterfall, being with Anna made it easier.

Call it true love or fate or circumstance, the pair was stronger together.

So Elsa commanded more braziers lit; more torches burnt; more heat to spill into the roomful of ice. And then she released the staff, feigning doubt.

"Post guards at the exterior of the castle," she had told Kai. "And you can tend to the fires. But I don't want any staff inside."

"But what are you trying to do, m'lady?"

"I'm testing myself, Kai. Building my strength, so these shipments, though arduous, become second nature. I don't want anyone in danger should something go wrong. You can't blame me for taking precautions."

"I can keep up the heat in the ballroom m'am, but no one else in the castle at all?"

"Anna has offered to stay with me."

"I meant someone to help with the basic tasks, your Majesty."

"We are royal, not incompetent. We can take care of ourselves for twenty-four hours."

At which point, Anna recalled running into a suit of armor, the others falling against each other with the force of collapsing dominos. Kai and Elsa winced as a helmet _clanged_ to the floor.

"Well, I can take care of us," she had heard Elsa say.

Kai had nodded good-naturedly.

The staff dismissed, the Queen had decided that the best way to examine the final results would be to get her mind off of the test collection completely, to see how well the enchanted ice held up while her concentration was on other things. Which is where Anna took over. The younger had thirteen years of sisterly activities to make up for in twenty-four hours, before Elsa went back to being Queen.

She and Elsa stole away to the empty kitchens, where Anna coached the blonde in the art of baking. Pies, cakes, sauces, fillings, pastries of every sort. They gorged on caramel, butterscotch and, of course, chocolate; and ended up moon-faced from a fight with baking flour.

Anna made Elsa, after much protest, crossed arms, and severe reluctance, slide down the spiraling banister.

"Never again."

"You'd be better with practice," Anna had said.

"Tell that to my bruised bottom."

"Now you're just being stubborn."

"I have a better idea."

Which is when ice-mattress sliding came into play, the pair hurtling over stairs on a frozen slide and large sleeping pallets. The _whooshing_ of the mattress and the giggle of the girls jettisoned them back a decade, to stolen years of joy and amusement and the pure enchantment of each other's company.

Book chapters read in funny voices. Hide and seek on the lower floors. Card and board games as the day wore on. Anna even managed to get Elsa back on their bicycle. The phrase was cliché for a reason.

"Kai?" Elsa asked, broaching the door to the ballroom at the end of the day.

"Careful, your Majesty," Kai said at the entrance. He put a glove on his hand and rotated the brass knob. "It's quite hot."

Heat seeped from the crevice in the doorway like fumes from a furnace, billowing waves of muggy air orbiting around the girls and head butler as they made their way into the ballroom to check on the integrity of the tested ice.

"They're holding up very well, your Majesty. I'd ask if you were concentrating in the throne room, but your attire suggests otherwise," Kai said.

Anna saw streaks of white flour still attached to Elsa's light gown, her hair tussled, a smear of jelly above her dimple. She had insisted Elsa not play the Queen today, you know, for the sake of the experiment.

And so she hadn't.

"We've been… testing some… different methods, for keeping the ice frozen, Kai," Elsa explained.

"Did those methods involve jelly-donuts?" the elder serviceman winked.

She walked over and placed a hand on one of the larger blocks, as if she could speak to it through her touch. "Cold. Frozen, but not quite… frigid."

"Well, I've been stoking the fires as you said, your Majesty. There's been no sweating, no condensation."

"Thank you, Kai. And you're prepared to keep them burning through the night?"

"Yes."

"Then I think it's time I retire to my chambers. To see how they fare while I let myself get more than four hours of sleep."

"As you say, m'am."

"Thank you again, Kai."

"Good night your Majesty, Princess Anna."

The girls exited the ballroom and adjourned to the east wing, hallways empty enough for long, relaxed kisses and uninterrupted touches.

"Are you prepared to aid the kingdom's financial future?" Elsa asked flirtatiously.

"I'm prepared to do whatever it takes, your Majesty," Anna said with a faux gravity that hinted at… well, _other_ things.

Anna grabbed her wrist and slammed the bedroom door behind them.

When they woke the next morning, Kai was perplexed beyond belief.

"The fires just stopped moving, m'lady. I even stuck my hand in the flames, but it didn't burn me. The light was there, but the heat wasn't. I tried adding more wood, and then oil, but they wouldn't ignite for all my efforts. By the morning, the ice seemed to have refrosted itself. I had to leave the room and come back and check periodically, because it was so cold. I hope you can forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, Kai," Elsa said, with a knowing glance at Anna. "This is exactly what we hoped would happen, to ensure the arrival of longer and more strenuous deliveries to the lower lands."

"But how did you do it, your Majesty? It's not a slight to yourself, but a marvel. Your powers only grow stronger."

The feline grin grew like a flower shoot, gradual and natural, as she watched Anna duck into one of the entrances to the secret passages in the castle. She thought she saw the younger wrestling with a snatch of black fabric.

"Honestly, Kai, I've just been practicing. And Anna's been helping."

"Well, congratulations, your Majesty."

"Indeed. You may send for the servants' return at noon. And convene a meeting with the royal engineers tomorrow. See what they know about the islands to the southwest and their patents with vapor-compression."

"Aye, m'am."

"And Kai?"

The older man raised his brows.

"Your loyalty and discretion is beyond our gratitude."

"You two are like my own, Elsa. Good day."

"Good day."

* * *

Anna was shocked from her momentary flashback, returning to the table, returning to the mousse, returning to the emphatic speech of the Toqarian representatives as glacial breezes and chilly forces ransacked the covered portions of her body. Elsa had definitely gained control, and with that control, a boldness that left Anna both titillated and terrified.

Was she really going to do this with the emissaries right _here_ at the table?

The line of northward moving frost that materialized along the inside of her knee was proof enough.

Anna rubbed her legs together, wriggling against the high-backed chair.

"So, Princess Anna, I hear you're the resident adventurer of Arrendale," undersecretary Moro said, attempting a parley that didn't focus on dessert. "Storming snow-capped mountains for the sake of the kingdom. Are you sure you're not a knight in lady's clothing?"

At that remark, Elsa shifted involuntarily at the opposite end of the table, and more icy webbing began moving its way up Anna's thighs.

"Mmmmhmmm."

Moro's brow jutted forward severely, like a peak over the gulch of his face. "You… are a knight?"

"No, no, I meant… um, the uh, chocolate!" Anna said, another spoonful to her face. "Mmmmmhhhmmm."

She missed her mouth when some light, cool pressure nestled itself against her undergarments. Anna snorted silken chocolate and the pressure increased, fumbling against her dampening center.

"Anna, are you alright?" Elsa asked innocently from the head of the table.

The taunting grazes intensified at her lower levels, the middle finger of Elsa's left hand stroking the handle of her own dessert spoon almost imperceptibly.

Completely unnoticed, save for Anna.

Which forced the princess to stifle a gurgle.

"Fine. 'M fine. 'S just… a little… cold."

"You just said you were warm," Moro countered, confused.

"Did I say cold? I meant warm. Hot… Too hot for dinner," she said, willing her eyes to strike Elsa unconscious that very moment. The Queen's blank air of concern was just maddening, as were the rippling swells of chilled air caressing her folds beneath the table.

"Is everyone else comfortable?" Elsa asked, respectfully. "We can extinguish some of the larger fires."

She gave Anna a look, part snigger/part smirk, that said something to the effect of: _I'll put out the flames, but not the fire boiling below__** your**__ deck_.

Elsa waved a hand at a serving boy standing mutely on the wall, gesturing toward the fireplaces.

The faces of the Southern visitors fell. Their country was near the globe's center line. Roaring fires were the closest they had to a heated climate while visiting Arrendale, especially at the end of the fall season.

"That won't be necessary, your Majesty," Anna said, with pointed usage of proper address. "Don't bother for me. You know my moods."

"Yes. I do." And with no further talk, she went back to speaking with Minister Spiro.

And Anna went back to holding herself together, bit by shattering bit.

"They said you rode a reindeer, Princess. Is that true?"

"Yes, his name is Sven, great one, that Sven. Very expressive. Can't talk, though, wish he could. Wouldn't that be exceptional? Reindeer that could talk! And if they could talk, that means they could sing, and if they could sing—" Anna was now white-knuckling her dessert spoon, her fingernails clawing into the shellac on the dinner table. "—urguuuh… then they could, hmmm, uh, whistle. Whistling reindeer. Have you ever thought of that?" She blinked, and kept blinking, fighting the sensations pawing at her lower body.

It was almost as if Elsa had separated from herself, transforming into some abstract presence manipulated by the Queen with chilled, pleasurable, infuriating traces along Anna's body. The coolness had somehow tunneled _under _her clothes, the outside force pressing then releasing, like a pump working its spirited mechanics against her velveteen gown. Anna crossed her arms over her chest and dug her nails into the flesh of her arms.

She followed Elsa's actions: speaking with Minister Spiro, turning to another unidentified emissary to her left, then glancing over her chocolate, all while Anna was stewing in her own passionate giddiness. But Elsa's shoulders were rolling slightly. Anna knew exactly what her sister's hands were doing. She'd seen it on many occasions: weaving elaborate patterns under the table, prodding the air, stroking at nothing, as if Anna's body were there, set up like a loom, her hands knitting patterns and sequences into the surface of Anna's skin. Elsa zigzaged, meandered across with chilly, intoxicating touches and squeezes.

Anna's jaw dropped open then clicked shut. Again, and then twice more. She was gaping at the air like a disoriented guppy. The princess bit her lower lip. Hard.

The frosted presence had melted, because the spot between her legs was moistening by the moment. Or… that might not have been the presence at all.

Thankfully, no one was paying much attention to her carnal fit, for the question of whistling reindeer had sparked a heated debate about the plausibility of speaking animals.

"Narnian fairytales—"

"The Winkie Country in Oz—"

"—a delightful little Hundred-Acre Wood, heffalumps and woozels notwithstanding—"

The men were debating fervently, while Anna was twitching seismically, stamping the floor with her feet, legs springing open after she had so labored to keep her knees crossed. While the emissaries batted conjectures across the table like shuttlecocks, Elsa locked eyes with Anna and delicately lifted her spoon.

A fresh, robust pushing wound its way into Anna's nether regions as Elsa inserted the spoonful of chocolate into her mouth. Anna felt circular movements in her swelling and contracting core, watching intently as Elsa twisted her lips, spiraled her tongue, and rotated the handle of the slender silverware. She extracted the utensil from her mouth with a soft pucker, and Anna's center was suddenly devoid of the tortuously decadent pressure. Thankfully, Elsa was not cruel. Before the princess could recover, another spoonful of Anna… that is, chocolate, was in Elsa's mouth. The Queen was lapping at it diffidently while Anna's bones, muscles, cartilage, and organs softened into putty, rubbed and fondled and manipulated by a familiar yet intangible presence.

Anna's eyes rolled back into their sockets, agreeable waves of coolness pummeling her lower canyon in punctuated succession.

She whimpered, and attempted to drag the back of her hand inconspicuously across the underside of her breast. She was desperate for more friction. And the chaffing, and the sucking, all constricted in an exquisite seizure of silent nerves, Elsa unabashedly licking her spoon clean as Anna clenched tighter, bit harder, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth from gnawing at her lip.

_Keep quiet, keep quiet… _

The syncopated pressures striking her womanhood turned frigid, so cold she was burning. Everything was blending like individual instruments in an orchestra: the rolling syllables from the men, the oppressive air from the fireplaces, the sensual, grinding sensations on her body, all a symphony she both couldn't bare to hear yet wished would never stop playing. And Elsa, clever, daring, dexterous Elsa, was conducting the whole sequence to its climax.

"—nor is Louie the king of the Jungle."

"What do you say, Princess?"

"_YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!_" Anna exclaimed.

Her breathing came in irregular gasps, her chest heaving against her corset, her eyelids drooping to where her splayed fingers were locked in a death-grip on the edges of the dinner table. Anna felt the reverberations of her orgasm in her twitching shoulder, her stinging, sensitive center, and in the lusty gaze she was bashfully throwing down the length of the table.

"Yes, well," Moro continued, visibly startled by the outburst. "It seems that the Princess has come around to my argument."

_Not yours. But I came around to Elsa's…_

"Gentleman," Elsa said, "As interesting as I find the linguistic exploits of foreign species, I pray you excuse me for the rest of the evening. You may go through at the footman's direction." Elsa gestured grandly to two massive wooden double doors at the south end of the hall. "Drinks and tobaccos courtesy of the royal house of Arrendale. I, once again, thank you for your patience and willingness during negotiations. Please enjoy your last night in the castle, and I await your departure on the morrow."

A chorus of 'your majesty's' followed, and the scraping of chairs on floorboards echoed as Elsa rose, the emissaries rising likewise out of deference. Anna was still slumping at the table in her afterglow, bemused smile on her face. Not until a freezing blast of air bit the back of her neck did she, too, dismiss herself.

She wobbled out of the dining hall and started ducking into rooms to find Elsa.

Gallery, conservatory, gardens, library, study, parlor, bedchambers… no, no, no, and no. The stables? Not this late. Kitchens? They'd just eaten. She'd nearly given up the ghost of her sister when she snuck by the washroom in the east wing, the one situated near their bedchambers. The unmistakable hum of satisfaction was reverberating from the walls like an echo in a cave. The tune was recognizable, sentimental, for it was the tune she had been humming when she approached Elsa in the bath; her sister's body as bare as her own soul had been that evening so many months previous. She'd not told Elsa, but in her mind, that tune would forever be their song.

She sidled in mutely, wishing she could crumple into the steamy water, and subsequently, into her sister's embrace.

"Took you long enough," Elsa said, lounging in the bath.

"What the hell was _that_, Elsa!?"

"Watch your language, Anna," Elsa said, craning her neck over the edge of the tub. "We have guests tonight, and these walls are thinner than you might think."

"Which I bet you just _loooove_," Anna said, shuffling over to the edge of the tub. "Elsa…" Anna said, reaching for her sister's hand. She wound her dry digits around her sister's, braiding them together like her own plaits. The shock of pale white against her tanner hands resembled the streak she'd sported in her hair since youth, a highlight of what she'd overcome… what _they_ had overcome.

Elsa smiled up at her and gripped her hand tightly.

"Did I mess up the dinner?"

Elsa's brows shot up in confusion, and then her face relaxed into understanding.

"What? Anna, no, no— you… ha!" Elsa sunk under the water in gurgly giggles, violent bubbles gushing toward the surface as she continued to chortle underwater. The blonde broke the surface and Anna had never seen a more beautiful or infuriating sight. The pastel mermaids in the gallery couldn't even compare with her noble lover, all dripping translucence and elegant glee.

"I got them to sign the documents before the dinner," Elsa explained.

"What?"

"Signed, notarized with the royal seal, homing birds sent to their lands, the entire process, Anna. The deal was done, so I decided to have a little fun at dinner."

"Fun? Is _that_ what you call it?"

"Wasn't it fun for you?"

"That—" Anna shouted, "—is entirely beside the point."

"Not so loud, Anna. There are still people here."

"Now you know how I felt when I was sitting there in front of all those emissaries. Like I was going to explode all over their dessert plates."

Elsa just scrunched her face up at her sister, shifting to her knees to give Anna's lips a peck.

"Admit it, you had fun. And it was surprise fun. Two notches in my column."

"How did you even do that, Elsa?"

"Practice."

"What do you mean, practice?"

"Anna, I can freeze kingdoms, instigate blizzards, fling sleet and hail and snow from my pinky finger. Surely you knew I could, hehe…" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "... _thaw_ some of your own tension."

Anna ran her hands through her sister's hair, processing her words. "But practice means you would've had to try it out, to judge how much pressure you'd need. How much cold I could stand, or at least, someone could stand, and then there's the whole 'getting under my petticoats' miracle, which I still can't figure— oh my gods."

"What?"

"You practiced on yourself, didn't you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You little sneak—" Anna said, unbuttoning the golden clasp at the top of her cleavage. She began unlacing the ties at the back of her gown, shedding the entire thing until she stood in her corset and undershift. "Aside from that being sinfully alluring, I seem to remember someone saying we had to limit ourselves while we had visitors in the castle," Anna said, ripping her shift over her head. She scampered over to the bathroom door and clicked the lock into place, the _snick_ sound of the lever bounding off the walls like Sven over the mountains.

"I meant with each other, Anna. And I don't think this is a good idea," Elsa's voice had dropped. "Everything echoes in here."

Anna hooked her thumbs under the sides of her delicate cloth panties and jerked them down, bare as her naming day but much more developed.

"Then I think it's time you deserve a taste of your own medicine," Anna said, slinking toward the edge of the tub. "Or, in this case, dessert."

Elsa was cowering on the opposite end, timidity and arousal attempting to drown the other from her expression.

"Anna, we need to be careful—"

"The Toqarians are probably getting slap-happy drunk on our dime, Elsa. They're two floors down, wings away, and I've got a sister who wouldn't dare let a sound slip for fear of discovery."

Anna stepped into the tub and kneeled, shifting herself around to pull Elsa to her.

"Ice the door."

Elsa lifted an arm over Anna and complied, letting her hand settle on Elsa's shoulder as the younger wrapped her hands around the Queen's torso. Anna couldn't see for the bubbles and water, but she was equally as content to feel. She bent her knees at a severe acute angle, bringing her feet over Elsa's thighs and behind her body while simultaneously tugging her compliant sister towards her. When their wet centers met, they both released a hiss of satisfaction.

"Remember," Anna whispered, groping her sister under the water. "The walls are thin and echoey, so you're going to have to keep quiet."

She ground her hips into Elsa's naked hub.

"Ugh… easier said than done," Elsa mumbled through gritted teeth.

"You can bite me if you need something to do with your mouth," Anna whispered into her neck. She latched her lips onto her sister's collarbone and started sucking. "I really don't mind."

"It's a good thing it's late fall, and those high-collared gowns are appropriate."

Anna removed herself from Elsa's neck. "Are you saying you don't want me there?" she teased.

"Nothing of the sort, please continue," Elsa whispered.

The pair continued in this fashion, quietly, the slosh of waves against porcelain and the occasional wet pucker the only sound in the bathroom. Elsa's mouth fell open when Anna pierced the gully between her legs. And keeping quiet was _much_ more difficult after that.

"Now you know how I felt, you vixen," Anna murmured into her ear.

"Aaaah—"

"Quiet, remember?" Anna said.

"I can't Anna, I'm so…"

"So—"

"Oh, _there_, Anna… Just… for the first, hmmm, first time—"

"In forever?"

"For the first time… I feel… _hot_."

"So hot, Elsa. Now let me kiss you."

Elsa responded by slipping two fingers into Anna. And then by shoving her tongue down Anna's throat. They'd never experienced synchronized orgasm, nor were they aiming for such. It was slimy, and heated, and their angle elicited a cramp in Anna's wrist. But there was a goodness in the action that Anna could not reason nor articulate. A pleasant wetness, dewy, like walking barefoot in the garden in the early morning. Peaceful, within the Queen's walls.

So when they both silently came, the pulsing energies zapped into the other, rippling, zinging, like hammers striking piano chords within the depths of the instrument. Surprising, supple, soundless sound.

And it was everything.

Anna turned into Elsa, the Queen leaning back against the end of the claw foot tub. They were wrapped in each other, more interwoven than they had been on their first excursion in the washroom. They knew more, felt more, and were wary of more. But they also loved more.

Which was everything.

"So this is it, then?" Anna asked.

"What's it?"

"Days spent in negotiations, nights in your bath, or your bed?"

"You'd get far too restless."

"You know me too well."

"I can't promise adventures around every turn."

"And I can't promise consistency."

"I would never expect you to. But I promise to love you," Elsa whispered, placing her lips above Anna's ear.

"I promise to love you, more."

"This one-upmanship is ridiculous."

"Oh, I'm glad you agree," Anna said, petting Elsa's lower curls behind her. "Because I'm ahead of you tonight."

"I'm fine Anna. Let me hold you?"

"Oh course… I just think, it's all happened."

"What has?" Elsa asked.

"I got a happy ending," Anna said contentedly, kissing her sister's knuckles. Then her voice dropped an octave, and she began tracing her sister's leg under the water. "In more ways than one."

* * *

_**Because this is the last chapter (I know, I'm sorry), I feel I'm allotted some author's notes:**_

_**I did not start this story with the intention of fleshing out a plot. But, 20,000+ words somewhat necessitates one, even if that's not what I was going for, so I'm sorry if this ends rather shakily. **_

_**Apologies for grammar errors. This was posted hastily and somewhat tipsily. (Is that even an adverb?)**_

_**I don't feel like this last chapter is very tight writing-wise, and I apologize for that. Intimate scenes tend to drag for me because I am unfamiliar with them (I wasn't lying, no matter what you say, about that last chapter being my first time writing smut).**_

_**And finally, the Thank You. Thank you for your follows, your favorites, and your reviews. Positive thoughts and criticisms, I collect them all like flowers in a bouquet. Because how can I improve without your feedback?! Lemme let you in on a little secret... I CAN'T! It's been fun working on this piece, and I'm happy I got to share it with you guys. Would love a final review for the Elsanna love, if you've been following but waiting til the end to give any feedback. I myself am notorious for doing so.  
**_

_**Once again, THANK YOU.**_

_**-A**_


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